Cord Blood Banking

[MizzB]

Hey Ladies,

I was wondering your thoughts on this. I am rather clueless about this controversial topic and have only recently been researching it. Are any of you planning on doing it or have done it with previous children? I was also trying to weigh the benefits of cord blood banking in conjunction with the cost. I have read that the possibility of using cord blood for the chidren that you bank it from is less than 5%!! Dh and I do not plan on having any more kiddies so this would be it for us. Has anyone heard anything different? I am also very curious about the benefits of cord blood banking and diseases that could be cured or treated in the near future that are not possible to treat today.

Ailese

[SWOhoney]

Ailese, the cost will be pretty high for twins - I believe it runs about 2500 for each child. But here is what I have read in other posts:

"should your child come down with an illness that can be "cured/treated" with cord blood, their cord blood can't be used since it carries the illness. This is why I decided not to bank DS' cord blood.

But...after delivery, my hospital asked if I wanted to donate the cord blood to the national cord blood bank. It's available for "all to use" but it's also available to us should we need to access it and it's still available. Since we technically donated the cord blood, this was free. So, that's what we did. Not all hospitals offer this, though.

There was a thread about this on General Parenting recently, I think. There was lots of good insight -- if I can find it, I'll link.

Here's the link: http://www3.fertilethoughts.com/foru...ght=cord+blood "

[SWOhoney]

sorry the link above is broken. try this Cord blood - Did you bank it and how do you feel about your decision?

[Nikki_C]

Well hello miss ailese! Hehehe..I'm stalking you I was actually wanting to bank our baby's cord blood, but the cost is ridiculous. So I dont think we will be able to do it for this baby, but I was looking into donating it. I do not want to donate it to a cord blood bank, because I dont believe that they should make tons of money off of the people who need it, while they paid nothing for it. I would love to find someone who is compatible and in need of cord blood. I would give it to them for nothing more than the collection costs, but dont really know how to go about finding a family in need, especially who can wait until October.

[MizzB]

Thanks for the info Cece! Yikes!! The cost, especially for twins, is really expensive. I don't understand the cost at all.... Nah... we're not going to donate.

Nikki, Whut Up, Lady! LOL! You are not stalking me! I am with you on giving the cord blood to someone who you knwo really needs it. I would def prefer that it go to someone in need than to be donated for science.

I'm leaning away from it. But, thanks for your feedback ladies.

Ailese

[BC-3boys2luv]

I donated it from my third son. My BIL has been fighting leukemia and there's no match for him in the marrow registry and so his next and last step (hope) if/when he next relapses is cord blood (unless a match happens to join between now and then). So I donated it. If it saves a life of someone like him, I'm happy, even if I don't get a cent out of it.

[arrgee]

Originally Posted by BC-3boys2luv

I donated it from my third son.

ack I wish I would have known that .. I would have done the same. Too late now