To think many women would be happy to donate umbilical cords and placentas?

[wotoodoo]

I have just read of MN handholding please - relapse from Dashing redhead and think that if mums to be were aware of how useful umbilical cords and placentas were for stem cell harvesting, then they would get many more donations.

I asked about donating mine. Got looked at as if I was crazy. Asked somebody else and was told no it's not possible. I didn't pursue it but it's a shame.

Stripey annoyingly, I don't think you can. Someone posted the Confessions of a vampire midwife article a few months ago which is interesting.

I am planning to donate mine and have registered with the Anthony Nolan Trust to do so - the midwife assured me that they could still do delayed cord clamping though stripey.

Mash pot I don't think so as it's been 7.5 months and I've heard nothing. I signed up to the Anthony Nolan thing but on my scan there was something unusual on the placenta (I forget what now, didn't affect baby!) but that was why they wanted it for research and I signed a bunch of forms and it still got left! Apparently they were busy that week, hence my 3 day wait for a bed on the labour ward...

A load of forms were put into my notes at my 12 week scan but nothing was explained to me. I wasn't even told they were being added, just found by accident! I later read the forms in my notes and found out they were about donation. I'm happy to sign them but I'm sure many women haven't looked at them so I don't suppose they are pushing it very much at my hospital.

I wish this was more widely known and available.

It simply wasn't done when I delivered my babies (vaguely heard of, possible in theory to store your own privately, but no one set up to collect in NHS).

I hope that more hospitals start to offer collection, and that it becomes a routine question at a 3rd trimester antanatal appointment.

I looked into it. I think there is only about half a dozen hospitals in England that do it:
Barnet General Hospital
Northwick Park Hospital, Harrow
Luton and Dunstable Hospital
Watford General Hospital
St George's Hospital, London
University College Hospital, London.

If you want to collect/store your own otherwise it can be done privately but its very difficult to arrange and is quite costly (several thousand pounds). I got the impression from this that in these cases it would only be for your own private use rather than being banked so the potential benefits were rather limited as well.

Given the option, its something I would have done.

www.nhs.uk/conditions/blood-donation/Pages/Cordblooddonation.aspx

I would and I'm pissed off I can't, as a close relative has a condition where this is highly relevant. Our hospital doesn't do it, don't think we can afford the private storage option. But I do hope this becomes more widespread, it's interesting no one here has said No, they wouldn't feel comfortable donating.

Like lots of other people have said, I'd have been happy to donate mine , in fact I actively wanted to, but it was only offered at a very few hospitals and mine wasn't one of them.

Sadly, I'm not convinced that list of participating hospitals is a great deal longer now than it was then - and my youngest is 15.

Placentas and umbilical cords are full of stem cells for a reason and the blood is supposed to be transfused into the baby. If we stopped outdated practices and early cord clamping there wouldn't be an outcry over 'wasted' stem cells.

I think you'd be better campaigning for more adults to join donation registers.

I donated mine at UCH almost exactly a year ago. It's such a good idea.

I just picked up a leaflet from Anthony Nolan trust at my hospital who aren't on that list. Maybe more hospitals are trying to do something.
It's not placenta though, just umbilical cord. However I don't feel mws are pushing it enough, when I enquired I got told to mention it when I go into labour ward. I'm sure that's at the top of ever labouring woman's mind when she's in active labour!!

I looked into donating mine but found the same limited number of hospitals listed online. I did have delayed clamping but really regret this now as I think this contributed to my retained placenta.

In America, I believe this is more widely done. I also believe it's easier and less costly to store for potential personal use.

I donate mine, I'm really surprised so few hospitals have the facilities.

Glasgow royal do it and the midwife spoke to me about it the morning of my planned section. I told her I was really surprised not to have heard they were doing it before. She explained that they are massively stretched and she can only really attend and harvest from the planned sections. So there you are a resources issue. I think it's an awful shame.

On the other hand one of the things needed is ethnically diverse cords. So hospitals who collect tend to be in such areas.

I did this both times, I'm in Sheffield.

Wow, an overwhelmingly positive response.

I can completely understand why adult donation is simply not an option for many because of the invasive procedure, 2 day hospital stay and 10 day recovery period so those who are able to do this are invaluable and wonderful.

May be we can start a campaign to get Midwives to publicise it in conjunction with the relevant charities like the Anthony Nolan Trust?

As they rely on donations may be it is lack of funding which is why there are not more collection points.

Surely the mighty power of Mumsnetters can change this situation!

Thanks for the link andifeedem I don't think I'd agree to cord blood donation if it ment I couldn't do delayed cord clamping, delayed cord clamping is really important to me as I have low iron levels and I want my baby to have the best chance of getting all the blood they can.

Royal Free in London also takes donations

Unfortunately you can't donate after a c-section so i ended up not donating as i had a EMCS - but the blasted woman who was going to get the donation didn't realise it and barged in and was in theatre while i was getting the section and it just crowded the room
ahem...

Are you sure they go in the trash?

I was told, admittedly 27 years ago, that placentas were sold to manufacturers of face creams.

For £9 each IIRC!

I really want to do this, especially as ds has very rare blood type so if this baby does as well I figure it would be helpful. But there are no hospitals near me. Dh and I did have a brief chat about whether we should explore moving hospitals as they may allow us to have this baby st George's, which does it. But it's quite far from us and obviously I worry about getting there, traffic etc.

I donated when I had DS (Watford General) and had wanted to with DD 2 years earlier but she was born on a Friday and there were no staff working over weekends in the relevant department so it was wasted unfortunately.

DS got a nice thank you card and we got some info about the value of his donation. It was very straightforward.

I tried to donate mine nine years ago, I asked the midwife, she couldn't help, I also looked into storing stem cells for my own child's use, but that was about £2,500. I could only find one university, so not even a hospital, who would like it for research. Problem was the university was in Scotland I was in SW England, so it went in the bin. I didn't bother even asking with the next two, they just went straight in the bin as well.