Cord Blood Banking (for Parents) (2024)

FAQs

Cord Blood Banking (for Parents)? ›

You can store it in either a public bank or a private family bank that offers a directed-donation program. You can also consider this option if you're at risk of conceiving a child with a genetic disorder, like sickle cell disease, that can be treated with a cord blood transplant.

In a haploidentical transplant, the donor and patient only need to have a 50% match as long as they are immediate relatives. This expands the use of cord blood to mom and dad and other partially matching immediate family members.

Some insurance providers will cover the cost of cord blood banking when collection is medically necessary. For example, depending on the provider, families with a history of leukemia or other blood disorders may be eligible for total or partial coverage of the costs of cord blood collection and storage.

Although privately banked cord blood is not likely to help your baby, it may help a sibling who has an illness that could be treated with a stem cell transplant. These include leukemia, sickle cell disease, Hodgkin's lymphoma, and thalassemia.

How does umbilical cord blood help save lives? Umbilical cord blood contains blood-forming stem cells, which can renew themselves and differentiate into other types of cells. Stem cells are used in transplants for patients with cancers like leukemia and lymphoma.

Cord blood banking can help someone, including someone in your immediate family, in need of stem cells. Stem cells can be found in your baby's cord blood. Stem cells from cord blood have been shown to help treat many life-threatening conditions like cancer.

If parents choose to store their infant's cord blood in a private bank, a collec- tion fee that ranges from $900 to $2000 and an annual storage fee of approximately $90 to $150 may be required. Fees vary between private banks. How do we decide whether to donate?

Cord blood banking may be tax deductible under certain circ*mstances. If your child or family member has a medical condition with an immediate need for an FDA approved treatment with cord blood, the cost of collection, processing, and storage may be tax deductible.

One study says the chance that a child will use their cord blood over their lifetime is between 1 in 400 and 1 in 200,000. The stored blood can't always be used, even if the person develops a disease later on, because if the disease was caused by a genetic mutation, it would also be in the stem cells.

Is it ethical to have private cord blood banks? ›

Nonetheless, collection and storage of cord blood raise ethical concerns with regard to patient safety, autonomy, and potential for conflict of interest. In addition, storage of umbilical cord blood in private as opposed to public banks can raise concerns about access to cord blood for transplantation.

Choices for storing cord blood

After collection, the blood is sent to the facility of your choice, where it will be processed and then frozen in storage. No one is certain how long cord blood lasts. Some experts believe it can be stored for 21 years or more.

Do Hospitals Keep Placentas? Hospitals treat placentas as medical waste or biohazard material. The newborn placenta is placed in a biohazard bag for storage. Some hospitals keep the placenta for a period of time in case the need arises to send it to pathology for further analysis.

According to Cell Trials Data, a provider of data on clinical trials of advances cell therapy, cord blood banking rates are highest in the US, at 3% of births each year.

Cord blood stem cells are superior to bone marrow stem cells in terms of risks of rejection, contamination, and infection. They also outperform bone marrow in their ability to replace cells damaged or deceased from chemotherapy or radiation treatments. Cord blood has a lower risk of graft-vs-host disease (GVHD).

Cord blood can be used for siblings and family members, offering hope in situations that may otherwise seem dire. The likelihood of finding a compatible match is significantly higher between siblings than unrelated donors.

Around 5 percent of parents choose to bank their baby's cord blood publicly or privately. Learn about the different cord blood centers and options you can consider before delivery.

If a related donor transplant is an option for you, the healthy blood-forming cells come from someone in your family. Your donor may be your brother, sister, child or parent. Your transplant doctor may ask them to come to your hospital to donate the cells for your transplant.

Technically yes parents and other family members can use stem cells from other members of their family. But it is somewhat trickier. As the recipient, they will need to be compatible with certain proteins from the baby.