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HWN Suggests

Cordblood banking: Is it worth it?

Since the moment I conceived I've been inundated with pamphlets and e-mails (even phone calls!) from different cord blood banks urging me to bank my baby's stem cells with them. Every single pregnancy website I go to has a pop up that tells me how important this is, and how, if I don't do it, I'm basically a bad mother before I'm even a mother. Well, I decided to do a little research on the topic and have discovered some interesting stuff.

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 Health: Tangled Cord

Of course, I want to do what’s right for my child, but I also don’t like to waste my money. So I decided to do some homework. What I learned is that unless your children are African Americans or some other minority who might have trouble finding a good genetic match, the odds that they will ever need their own cord blood are minuscule–perhaps 1 in 100,000. Since the early 1990s, when the Cord Blood Registry began taking deposits, only 37 families have come back to make withdrawals. “That’s a very expensive insurance policy,” says Dr. Stephen Feig, executive vice chairman of pediatrics at UCLA.

Articles of Interest

Promised Cures, Tainted Cells: How Cord Blood Banks Mislead Parents

Families pay thousands of dollars to store their children’s stem cells with the hope of a healthier future. But the cells are rarely useful, and sometimes contaminated.

Cord blood banking: Balancing hype and hope in stem cell therapy

Umbilical cord blood is the biological material that remains in the umbilical cord and placenta after the birth and cutting of the umbilical cord. It is a valuable source of stem cells with high proliferative potential. Although in many countries until recently, it was treated as medical waste and disposed of together with the placenta and umbilical cord, it is now often collected to isolate stem cells for storage and later use. Umbilical cord blood is a rich source of hematopoietic stem cells, which, like bone marrow cells, can be transplanted to rebuild the hematopoietic and immune systems.

Cord Blood Myths and Facts

Myth: Cord blood is a medical waste that has no value. Fact: A baby’s umbilical cord contains blood-forming stem cells that, when transplanted, can rebuild the bone marrow and immune system and save the life of a patient with a serious blood disease such as leukemia, lymphoma or sickle cell disease. Infusion of these cells can also treat patients with inherited genetic disorders, bone marrow failure or inherited immune deficiencies.

Could Umbilical Cord Blood Banking Save Your Baby's Life? Inside the Pregnancy Phenomenon

Of all the goods and services available to expectant parents, biological insurance—as blood cord banking is often considered—would seem a no-brainer. Yet it’s an incredibly expensive undertaking whose most intriguing benefits are linked to medical breakthroughs that we are still waiting for.

First Woman Has Been ‘Cured’ of HIV Using Stem Cells

The novel treatment using umbilical cord blood could help dozens of people with both HIV and aggressive cancers

Inside the Private Umbilical Cord Blood Banking Business

Most U.S. medical authorities support giving to public banks because the donated cord blood has a much higher likelihood of helping someone who is a close match, compared with the chances of children needing their own.

New Postpartum Trend: Mailing in Your Cord Blood

Cord blood is a noncontroversial source of stem cells, yet experts estimate that 99% of this potentially lifesaving resource gets thrown away postpartum. Unlike the stem cells in human embryos, which can morph into any kind of cell in the body, the stem cells in cord blood have their futures largely mapped out, as blood, brain, liver or heart-muscle cells, for example. But researchers have shown that cord-blood cells can be reprogrammed, and over the next decade, doctors hope to adapt these cells to treat heart attacks, strokes, diabetes and maybe neurodegenerative diseases too.

Should You Bank Your Baby’s Cord Blood?

The stem cells in this vital fluid could save someone’s life, but it probably won’t be your child’s.

The ethics of cord blood banking

It has been estimated that only one in 20,000 babies whose mothers have stored their blood are likely to need to use it themselves before the age of 20, after which the blood sample may have deteriorated. If they do develop one of the limited range of conditions for which cord blood transplants may be useful - such as leukaemia - receiving someone else's blood is clinically as good or better. Getting your own blood back isn't such a good idea if the illness has a genetic basis.

The promise of banking umbilical cord blood

Private cord blood banking is booming around the world – but would it be better to set up more public banks as the uses for umbilical cord blood increase? What makes cord blood so precious is that it contains blood stem cells – cells that can grow into any kind of blood cell in the human body, including the red blood cells that carry oxygen or white blood cells that form part of the immune system. Blood stem cells have been used to treat leukaemia and other blood diseases.

What Parents Should Know About Cord Blood Banking

Millions of parents have paid to bank blood from their infants’ umbilical cords. But storage companies have misled them about the cells’ promise.

What's Best for Baby? The Debate Over the Umbilical Cord Blood Bank Industry

Most expectant parents aren't likely to skimp on buying a car seat or crib: Baby's safety comes first. But what if someone offered to sell insurance against disease? Or, better yet, a possible miracle cure? Even at $2,000, there would be plenty of takers. That is essentially the pitch delivered in obstetricians' offices and hospitals across the U.S. For about the cost of furnishing the baby's room, you can pay a private company for the extraction, processing and storage of a newborn's umbilical-cord blood as a possible treatment for a future disease.

Why So Many Celebrities Keep Their Babies’ Umbilical Cord Blood

So why are all these celebrities storing their babies’ blood? Is this a bizarre celebrity luxury like steaming your vagina, or asking to be excluded from the narrative? Or is cord blood banking actually useful?

Resources

7 things you should know about cord blood banking

Banking your baby’s cord blood isn’t a total insurance policy. If your baby has leukemia, for example, using his or her own stem cells might not be the best option because “you’re putting in the same immune system that permitted the leukemia to develop in the first place,” according to Dr. Patrick Stiff, director of the Cardinal Bernardin Cancer Center and the Bone Marrow Transplantation Program at Loyola University Medical Center. Stiff said the best match would be a transplant from a sibling or from an unrelated donor.

Cord Blood Association

The Cord Blood Association is an international nonprofit organization that promotes both public and family cord blood banking and accelerates the use of cord blood and birthing tissues to benefit patients and advance medicine.

Cord Blood Registry

Cord blood stem cells, found in your baby's umbilical cord blood, can be used to treat a host of serious illnesses for mothers, babies and possibly family members. Essentially, every parent faces the same three choices at birth with regard to what they should do with their baby's cord blood.

Parent's Guide to Cord Blood Foundation

The primary mission of the Parent's Guide to Cord Blood is to provide parents with impartial education about cord blood medical research and cord blood storage options. This web site explains the medical motivations for banking umbilical cord blood, and the difference between public bank donation versus paying for private storage.

Save the Cord Foundation

Save the Cord Foundation, a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization, is dedicated to making this important decision as simple as possible for parents by providing unbiased educational information regarding cord blood preservation and its life-saving qualities.

Americord

Americord collects, processes and stores newborns' cord blood for future medical or therapeutic use. In addition to cord blood banking, we also offer a proprietary process, called CordAdvantage (available later this year), which harvests stem cells from the placenta in addition to the umbilical cord blood. CordAdvantage may save many times more stem cells than cord blood banking alone.

CryoCell

Founded in 1989, Cryo-Cell is the oldest cord blood bank and was the first cord blood bank to separate and store stem cells in 1992. Today, the company has over 240,000 clients worldwide. Since inception, 100% of our clients’ specimens have been successfully viable upon thaw. Our services include umbilical cord blood, cord tissue and menstrual stem cell banking.

Stembanc

Stembanc is a world class, scientifically expert company you can trust. Stembanc's FDA registered, state of the art laboratory facility is near the heart of the medical research region that includes the world renowned Cleveland Clinic and the new Center for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine.

ViaCord

ViaCord has been providing the highest quality, umbilical cord blood stem cell collections for families, and has been involved in cutting edge research to find new stem cell therapies for diseases like cancer, juvenile diabetes, and heart disease. Our mission is to provide the highest quality stem cell preservation service and care to our patients, families, and their physicians.

Bone Marrow and Cord Blood Donation Transplantation

Expanding access to life-saving bone marrow and cord blood transplants.