Cord Blood

If you are a parent-to-be, you may have seen fancy brochures in the OB (obstetrics) office or birthing center for donating cord blood. The idea with banked cord blood is that if the child develops a malignancy or other life-threatening disease that can be treated with stem cell therapy, the cord blood will have the right cells to get that therapy started at a later date. In the beginning of the cord blood banking days, there were very few diseases that actually were amenable to this type of therapy, but over the last 20 years, many, many more are getting stem cell treatments and numerous more are likely in the future.

The official policy recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics is that if your state has access to a public cord blood bank, then you should make arrangements to have cord blood stored there. Cord blood donation at a public cord blood bank has higher quality and storage guidelines than private banks, and public cord blood is used more often (30 times more often) than private banks. Public cord blood banks are also free, while private banks cost thousands of dollars. The biggest thing with donating cord blood to the public bank is that blood donation usually needs to be arranged by the 34th week of pregnancy to make sure all the forms and supplies are ready to go at the time of birth.

So if your state has access to free public cord banks, then go for it! (here is Washington’s https://www.bloodworksnw.org/donate/cordblood ). If not, the cost may not be worth it as with newer stem cell technology getting transplants from family members or donors is more viable and easier so the thousands and thousands of dollars to keep cord blood at a private bank is not as intriguing as it was before.