Cord blood donation - anyone done this?

[Longtalljosie]

I covered a story about six months ago on cord blood donation and was impressed by the strength of the argument in its favour. It's only done by a small number of hospitals and I've just put two and two together and realised one of them (Watford) is where I'm due to have my baby. So I'm seriously considering donating myself.

Has anyone done this? I'm talking about donating cord blood, not storing it or anything like that. I'm going to talk to my midwife about it on Friday but would be interested to hear if anyone else has done this and how it all went...

Yes i did. I didn't give it a great deal of thought to be honest. I had an elective section at Chelsea & Westminster 2 weeks ago and before i went into theatre someone came and asked if i was happy to donate the cord blood for medical research - in this case it was likely to be used in respect of research relating to HIV treatment and vaccines. It made no odds to me as she confirmed that collecting the cord blood would have absolutely no impact on me, the baby or the delivery so I said sure and signed a consent form and that was the last I heard of it. I assume they took whatever they needed.

I chose to have a physiological 3rd stage, so by the time the cord was clamped and cut there was very little blood left in it (it was all in my baby instead).

If I'd needed a managed 3rd stage and cord blood donation was an option I'd have seriously considered it, but I'd still choose a natural 3rd stage if I could.

Yes, I did. There was a consent form with my notes which I just signed, I was really keen to do this (seems crazy to throw all those stem cells away) so did ask when I arrived at the hospital in labour. The MW was a bit snippy "It depends if there is anyone available". Anyway, it doesn't affect you or the baby at all, unless you do as Tangle describes and ask them not to clamp the cord straight away.