What You Must Know About Cord Blood Banks

Along with banks that keep your money, there are other banks, which possess a high level of importance for storing umbilical cord blood cells. An umbilical cord blood bank allows parents or legal guardians to store cells extracted from the umbilical cord blood and placenta for use in future for the well-being of the newborn child or its family members. Collection, processing and storage of blood cells found in your child’s umbilical cord are managed by highly specialized teams of professionals. These cord blood cells are miraculous healing cells and can be stored only once in a lifetime, therefore, careful measures should be taken in order to select a cord blood bank.

Your baby’s cord blood can be preserved in either a private cord blood bank or a public bank. The main purpose of these banks is the processing and cord blood storage. If the storage center is public, then the blood cells cannot be permanently entitled to the donor. Here the donors can be ensured units of cord blood, but not necessarily that his own. The donor is mostly likely to be a stranger. The cost of preservation in such banks is comparatively lower than the private banks offering cord blood banking facility.

Nevertheless, private blood banks do have their own share of obstacles. The cost of cord blood storage in private banks is quite high and is likely to discourage many. The biggest attraction towards private cord blood banks is the guarantee that the cord blood a patient preserves, will not be used by anyone else, unless the donor himself permits. Compared to the lower chances of cord blood cells transplants in a child, storage prices charged by these banks are relatively quite high.

The capability of these enterprises, credentials of these private banks play as strong determining factors in the U.S. Banks accredited by the American Association of Blood Banks are entertained mostly by the hospitals. After cord blood collection, the samples are sent to these blood banks for processing and cyropreservation. Donors must check out the records related to the number of cases in which blood banks have used their stored samples in transplants. Recent estimation concludes that there is only 1% chance for autologous use of cord blood cells.

A private bank is an independent unit and not owned by the state. As mentioned earlier, ONLY YOU are entitled to access and use your cord blood sample. Such banks charge around $500 to $2,000 to store the sample. The charges vary with different private banks. Besides this, there is a maintenance fee or handling fee, which comes to around $100 annually.

If you and your partner are expecting a child soon, consider cord blood registry now as it can contribute in treating over 75 severe diseases. Not only will your child have a secure future, his siblings will benefit too. Diseases that can only be treated by drugs, rays such as chemotherapy or risk prone bone marrow transplants, are being treated with cord blood, with little or no side effects.