Arranging private cord blood banking?

[charcb]

Anyone knows how to go about doing this? Any recommendations on good companies to use? I'm surprised by the lack of info online to know which companies operate at which hospitals!

Anyone who did this and can offer some ideas? Thanks all!

We used Smart Cells. We gave birth overseas privately but it was all very straightforward to arrange, maybe contact a few agencies and talk through the options?

I looked into this and decided against it. Basically the baby needs all that blood inside them.

You don't take the blood from the baby it's from the cord after it's been cut

@charcb haven't decided yet but I think there are two main companies that do it in the UK at least. Checking with hospital at the moment though as they had stopped cord blood banking due to covid, but this is private so need to see what they say

I looked at this, and although we are quite well off financially I still thought it seemed really expensive as a 'what if' type measure.

It is but it depends on the two parents' ethnicity. Both mine and my husband's are very different (Opposite sides of world) so the likelihood of finding a match is significantly lowered so we rather pay for the what if

I looked into this also, but as far as I could see they only offered the service 9-5 Mon-Fri. So if you give birth outside of those times you weren't able to do it.

@Deftly I didn't give birth within office hours. I'm pretty sure there was a specific kit that they organise that was collected, either way they are able to accommodate

We used cells 4 life. All was very smooth and easy. As far as I remember there was a kit delivered in advance for the midwife to use and then a courier collected the blood. This was 12 years ago so the details are hazy. We pay an annual direct debit for the continued storage but it’s not very much money per year. Again I can’t remember.

Yes they take blood from the cord- new NICE policy is to only cut the cord after it has stopped pulsing- ie the blood is all transferred to the baby.
So if you cut the cord in purpose a bit earlier to harvest the blood then the baby doesn't get it all.
Just letting the OP know as I totally changed my mind when I found that out.

@Howzaboutye I came here to say the same thing! When I realised you can’t delay cord clamping for the optimum time, I was put off!

@Howzaboutye I came here to say the same thing! When I realised you can’t delay cord clamping for the optimum time, I was put off!

Thanks for all this info everyone! The info on not being able to do delayed cord clamping is quite interesting indeed so I may rethink this.

If you are giving birth at an eligible hospital please do consider donating your cord blood. You can still have delayed clamping as even small amounts of cord blood are valuable for research.