cord donation

[theUrbanDryad]

i'm 30 weeks pg and was wondering if anyone had tried it/was going to.

i keep meaning to ask the mw but duh pregnancy head prevails each time and i forget.

any ideas?

Who wants them?

Are they used for medical research?

It's a couple of mls of cord blood they want, not the actual cord - it's held in a bank (like the Blood Bank) and can be used as a source of stem cells for (eg) transplant into leukaemia patients for whom bone-marrow matches cannot be found.
There are specific studies collecting stem cells for research from cord blood but I'd imagine you'd be actively invited to participate if there was one running near you.

At the moment cord blood collection for banking is only done routinely at Northwick Park, Barnet, Luton & Dunstable and at Mater in Belfast, but it's worth asking if you're somewhere else.

More info from the Royal College of Obs & Gynae here .

(NB they take the blood from the placenta end of the cord once it's been cut, not from the end attached to the baby!)