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If you intend donating umbilical cord blood for preservation and later use, you should let your doctor know by your 34th week so that they can help make any arrangements with a cord blood bank. Once you and your doctor have decided on which cord blood bank to use, you will often be sent informational reading materials from the cord blood bank for further education regarding the process of cord blood harvesting.
Gluckman E, Broxmeyer HA, Auerbach AD, et al. Hematopoietic reconstitution in a patient with Fanconi’s anemia by means of umbilical-cord blood from an HLA-identical sibling. N Engl J Med.1989;321 :1174– 1178

Make no mistake, cord banks are businesses to the core. And just like any other business, there’s always the possibility of a cord bank failing. Which is why we suggest begining your search by checking the company’s experience, the number cord blood units stored, and how many of these cord blood units have been used for transplants. 
Given the difficulty in estimating the need for using one’s own cord blood cells for transplantation, private storage of cord blood as “biological insurance” is unwise. However, banking should be considered if there is a family member with a current or potential need to undergo a stem cell transplantation.
Barker JN, Weisdorf DJ, DeFor TE, Blazar BR, Miller JS, Wagner JE. Rapid and complete donor chimerism in adult recipients of unrelated donor umbilical cord blood transplantation after reduced-intensity conditioning. Blood.2003;102 :1915– 1919
There are several cord blood banks that are accredited by the American Association of Blood Banks. Most offer information on cord blood banking and provide private cord blood banking services. With a little research, you should be able to locate a credible cord blood bank online.
Cord blood has been used for 20 years to treat more than 80 serious diseases.34 Successful treatments have paved the way for further research and today, FDA-regulated clinical trials are exploring the use of a child’s own stem cells for conditions that currently have no cure.
At the end of a recent childbirth class, I found two couples engaged in a lengthy discussion. In the course of the conversation, both couples agreed that their goal was to do the best things for their pregnancy and birth. They were attending childbirth classes to learn how to support normal birth. They each were planning to attend breastfeeding classes. As their conversation continued, the first couple described their decision to bank the umbilical cord blood of their yet unborn daughter. They were adamant that their decision was the best action for them because they had a strong family history of myasthenia gravis. They stated that they had researched the issue by talking to several different cord blood banks, and they had decided on one particular bank because it processed the cord blood without the use of the anticoagulant drug, heparin. The couple went on to parrot back the information that the cord blood bank had told them. It was evident that the first couple wanted what was best for their yet unborn child.
LifebankUSA is the only cord blood banking company to have pioneered the advanced technology to collect additional placental stem cells for today’s treatments, and unique placental stem cells for future medical advancements. We discovered unique stem cells that remained trapped in the blood vessels of the placenta, so we created an innovative retrieval method to collect those cells.
The next step at either a public or family bank is to process the cord blood to separate the blood component holding stem cells. The final product has a volume of 25 milliliters and includes a cryoprotectant which prevents the cells from bursting when frozen. Typical cost, $250 to $300 per unit.
There are many “what if” situations that we all consider in our life. One of the most serious is “What if a child or other family member was to become seriously ill?” Cord Blood Banking clinics have been growing exponentially in response to this common fear. But should you ever find yourself in this dilemma, what are the pros and cons of using cord blood cells versus other stem cell-related treatments? This article will take a comparative look at some of the key benefits and difficulties as well as the financial costs of cord blood banking.
Families should seriously pursue public banking, donation for research, or private banking instead of discarding their baby’s umbilical cord blood. We aim to be nonpartisan in our dissemination of information, but we believe that discarding your baby’s cord blood is a waste of a once-in-a-lifetime valuable resource.
Regenerative therapy is the practice of delivering cells and cell products to renew diseased or damaged tissues in a specific area. It is one of the fastest growing fields of medical research. Each year, new regenerative therapies using stem cells from cord blood and cord tissue enter into clinical trials for the treatment of chronic and life-threatening diseases. If proven successful, these clinical trials will lead to approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). With FDA-approval, these treatments can then be administered as a general practice.
Carolinas Cord Blood Bank, established in 1998, is one of the largest public cord blood banks. It’s affiliated with Duke University, where trials are currently taking place to treat children with cerebral palsy with their own cord blood. Parents can mail in their cord blood donations and receive financial aid if they have a sick older child or family member who can be treated with cord blood.
Lewis ID, Almeida-Porada G, Du J, et al. Umbilical cord blood cells capable of engrafting in primary, secondary, and tertiary xenogeneic hosts are preserved after ex vivo culture in a noncontact system. Blood.2001;97 :3441– 3449
Researchers continue to investigate new applications of stem cells. Ballen (2006) reported on studies examining the use of stem cells for treating autoimmune diseases, such as lupus, systemic sclerosis, and multiple sclerosis. Gunning (2007) reported on stem cell research for regenerative uses for heart attacks, stroke, spinal cord injury, diabetes, liver injury, and even traumatic brain injury. However, Gunning also noted that these regenerative uses for stem cells are purely in the research stage and, so far, no tangible evidence supports any clinical uses beyond the diseases that are currently being treated.
The “cell recovery rate” is often used to compare processing methods. Expressed as a percentage, the cell recovery rate tells you how many cells are retrieved from the original cord blood collection, once plasma has been removed and red blood cells have been reduced or removed. It is expected that some cells will be lost during processing, and most processing methods have published cell recovery rates between 80%—99%

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