Public cord blood donation an idea whose time has come.
You would think that banking your baby’s cord blood is a very popular practice by new parents if you are a regular reader of parenting magazines. There are a lot of advertisements that encourage you to become a customer.
It is true that most parents think it is a good idea and usually jump at the chance of doing something to keep their baby healthy and possibly save their life. Yet it is still only a small percentage of parents who actually final do bank their baby’s cord blood. Why is that?
The high cost of umbilical cord blood banking is probably the number one reason. This is true when it comes to even those parents who can afford it. They consider how unlikely it is that they would ever need to use that banked cord blood and decide that the money will be spent on something else for the child a trust account for education or something else they consider important.
Some very informed authorities on the subject have concluded that private storage of umbilical cord blood as a kind of insurance against the vagaries of biology is not necessarily a wise decision. Numbered among those authorities on the subject who feel that way is the American Academy of Pediatrics.
That does not mean that the organization is against cord blood banking . They do in fact encourage parents to donate their baby’s cord blood to public cord blood banks. This in the hope that this will provide another source of stem cells for patients who have no matching donor in their own family, and cannot find an unrelated donor in bone marrow donor registries that is a match and for whom time is a critical element.
Public cord blood banks often provide a source of cord blood for parents who actually stored their baby’s cord blood in a private bank, when they find that they are not able to use it. This is not uncommon since often when a child’s need for a transplant arises the blood cord cells are ruled out for fear they,the blood cells sored from the sick baby may be corrupted. Fortunately they can take advantage of the generosity and forethought of parents who have engaged in donating umbilical cord blood.
If you are interested in donating your baby’s cord blood to a public cord blood bank, talk to your doctor to see if there is one available in your area. It is unfortunate that,the umbilical cord blood banks that allow you to donate cord blood aren’t yet abundant. There is hope that new pending congressional legislation will redefine a national cord blood program and hopefully will remedy this.
For more info on where public cord blood donation can be made see National Blood Donor Program A good source of a parents guide to cord blood.
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