Cord Blood Banking- which company to use? did you do it?

[nrvsmum2b]

Hi I am really thinking about banking cord blood. I have the option of banking the blood or the actual cord as well and was wondering what your experience was like with the company you chose (and costs!) - the companies I am considering are:

Virgin Health Bank
Cells4Life
Future Health Technologies
Smart Cells International
Cells Limited
UK Cord Blood Bank

Do you have experience with any of these? How was/is it?

Thanks QT- I am delivering at the Portland, and so perhaps Smart Cells is the way to go.. did you bank the cord blood alone or the cord blood and the actual cord (which is an option from some providers)?

Have you considered delayed cord clamping? If you opt for this then the cord is not clamped immediately, but allowed to stop pulsating - which gives time for the newborn baby to gain additional blood and iron stores (recent estimates in the BMJ suggest 3 months worth of iron) amongst other advantages. There's more info here.

I have seen suggestions that it would be possible to delay cord clamping and still get sufficient blood for storage, but when I tried to ask a cord cell storage company if this was possible they never replied. I don't know if you're planning a CS, but it is possible to have delayed cord clamping as part of a surgical birth.

Hope it goes smoothly, whatever you decide :)

We used Virgin Health Bank last time and have gone back to them this time. Their customer service has been excellent both times and the price came down significantly in the intervening three years.

We chose Virgin because a) it's a brand we trust and b) the option to keep some of the cord blood for yourself and make the rest available to others. Hopefully we won't ever need it, but someone else might.