Options for Saving Your Baby's Cord Blood

There are two main options when deciding what you’ll do with cord blood: you can go with a private bank or a public bank. Each has benefits, but what you intend to do with the cord blood will really dictate what type of bank you’ll choose to store your cord blood. Before the birth of your baby, you should really look into what options are available to you and decide then so that you aren’t trying to make those decisions on what will be the most exciting, but also exhausting day of your life.

Private Cord Blood Banks or Family Cord Blood Banks

Family banks are banks that will hold your baby’s cord blood just for your family. The information will not be entered into any registries and no one else will have access to the cord blood, even if someone was a perfect match to your child’s blood. Family banks allow for cord blood to be stored until someone in your family, your child or another family member, may need the stem cells.

The great thing about private or family banks is that storing with them is almost like having an insurance policy tucked away. You know that if your child gets sick or injured in the future you have something stored away in a blood bank that may give them a second chance. Stored cord blood just for family use is the best kind of insurance policy you can have, and it will only become more valuable as we move into the future and start to develop all the promise that stem cells hold.

Preserving your baby’s cord blood in a private or family bank isn’t selfish because you aren’t thinking of other people, it’s the best way to make sure that your child has the brightest future possible. You should think about storing the umbilical blood for all of your children in a family bank, that way all of your children will have the same hope in the future. Hopefully, they’ll never need it, but it’s better to have their precise stem cell needs met, just in case.

Public Donor Cord Blood Banks

Public donor banks are banks that take donations from families that want to have their umbilical blood made available to the public. There are so many people, right this moment, which need stem cells and are just waiting for a match. Donating to a public donor bank may provide the match for someone who is sick or injured. Donating your baby’s umbilical blood to a public bank may very well be the best thing you can do for someone else.

Making the choice to go with a public donor bank isn’t always an easy one. A lot of parents go with the private banks because they want to ensure that the umbilical blood is there for them and their family first and foremost. A lot of private banks understand this and will allow portions of the umbilical blood to be kept for public use and then preserve some for private use as well. The choice is up to you, with donor banks out there, the chance that we’ll all be able to find a match someday is becoming more and more likely every time someone donates.

Public donor banks may actually be more difficult to give to than private ones. Public donor banks often have funding program as this is a very expensive business, so they are not available in all hospitals. If you want to give to a public bank you should inquire which hospitals in your area would allow this to happen. Also, there are family health questionnaire’s that disqualify many people from giving to a public bank, so you might want to find out ahead of time whether you qualify or not.

Storing cord blood may very well be the most important thing that you ever do. Even if some diseases are not cured with them today, stem cells carry with them a lot of hope, a hope that will likely be realized in the future.

Each pregnancy, expectant mother, and unborn child is different. Your pregnancy may not progress the same as the information found here. The information here is based on the average pregnancy. It's not meant to be a replacement for any advice your may receive from your doctor. If you have any concerns about your pregnancy, we advise you to contact your doctor.