Cord blood banking.

[BlackstonesManual]

DC is due at the end of this year and thinking of cord blood storage. My mother wants to pay towards it as a gift for her grandchild.

Have any of you used the cord blood banking service when your baby was born?
My midwife handed me a leaflet which mentioned the Cells4life company. Anyone used this company or any other UK company? How much did it cost you?

[TinyTerror1]

I had a look into it but haven't decided whether to go with it yet. The companies seem to be pretty upfront with pricing on their websites. The other one I found was Virgin. It's about £2000 I think, unless I was misreading it. A bit more reasonable than I expected tbh.

[BumbleNova]

Can I ask why you are considering it? Have you looked at the benefits of delayed cord clamping? It's very expensive for minimal gain and detrimental to your newborn.

[Rikalaily]

I wouldn't do it. Delayed cord clamping is much more beneficial to the baby at birth and is the norm and recommended now. Odds are your baby will never need any blood recovered from the cord anyway. My last baby was so much more alert and fed alot better than my previous babies whos cord were cut immediately after birth, her cord wasn't cut until around 15 minutes after the birth, I'll be delaying cutting the cord this time until it's completely white again so baby can have all of his blood in him where it belongs.

[TinyTerror1]

Well I'm considering it because my brother has an as-yet-undiagnosed degenerative neurological condition and if I can help him then it's worth the £2k. Cells4life have an option that allows for delayed cord clamping. I haven't finished looking into it all yet though.

[BlackstonesManual]

Thanks for your replies.

I was considering it as the stem cells would help in treating a number of diseases plus repairing tissues and organs, in case the need arises for my DC or their sibling in the future.
(I belong to an ethnic group who don't get many donors as it is.)

Yes, I need more information to how long I could delay cord clamping in case I do go ahead with cod blood storage... will speak to my midwife about it.

I still haven't made my mind up so want to weigh the pros and cons before coming to a decision.

[BlackstonesManual]

*cord. Not COD!

[BumbleNova]

@Tinyterror1 that makes perfect sense. I hope it goes well.