Recently, I've had a few couples in my office ask about cord blood banking. This seems to be one of those topics that people hear about, but don't really know if they should consider. I'm going to try to help sort it all out...
Cord blood has what are called "hematopoietic stem cells". These are cells that are the precursors to all blood cells, so if for some reason your bone marrow was wiped out, these cells could be transplanted to help regenerate your blood. The situations in which cord blood transplants have been used include inborn errors of metabolism, cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma, and other genetic disorders like sickle cell anemia. These same hematopoietic stem cells are present in our bone marrow, they continue to replenish our own blood cells, and can be donated through bone marrow aspiration.
The benefit of using cord blood instead of bone marrow is that it is obviously MUCH less painful to procure the cells, and there is a decreased incidence of transplant rejection. The only disadvantage is that there are fewer stem cells in cord blood than in bone marrow, so multiple units often have to be pooled to be used for adult bone marrow transplants.
It is easy to collect cord blood at the time of delivery. If you're interested, you just call a company that stores the blood, and request a collection kit. After the baby is born, but before the placenta is delivered, a needle is used to puncture an umbilical vein and the cord is drained of blood into a bag, which is then returned to the facility for storage. There is no pain involved.
Before collection, though, you have to decide how and where you want it to be stored. There are public and private cord blood banks. Public banks are like blood banks. The blood is collected, and is available to anyone who needs it - as long as they are a match. This is just like donating your blood or signing up to be an organ or bone marrow donor. There is no charge to collect or store cord blood in a public bank. Similar to donating blood, potential donors are screened prior to donation, and not everyone qualifies. This blood is not directly linked to the donor, so if your family member would need stem cells, there is no way to ensure that your cord blood is given to them.
Private banks store the cord blood for a fee, to be used only by the donor or his/her relatives. The chance that a family member would actually use a stored unit of cord blood is relatively rare, about 1 in 2700. This would be a good idea, though, if there is already a known disease that can be treated with hematopoietic stem cells in a family member. There is a collection fee and yearly storage fees. The collection fee is around $2000, with an annual storage fee of around $125. Many of these facilities are "for-profit". I want to note that I have no financial or other interests in private cord blood banks.
It's also important to note that it is not known how long cord blood can be stored.
Another new development is the ability to collect umbilical cord tissue which contains mesenchymal stem cells that can be used to grow cartilage, tendon, and bone. This is an area of research, and there are no current therapies using cord tissue. Cord tissue is only stored in private banks at this time.
There are several good websites to get more information:
American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology
http://www.acog.org/~/media/For%20Patients/faq172.ashx?dmc=1&ts=20120117T1033244345
National Marrow Donor Program
http://marrow.org/Get_Involved/Donate_Cord_Blood/How_to_Donate/Where_to_Donate.aspx
National Cord Blood Program
http://www.nationalcordbloodprogram.org/donation/public_vs_private_donation.html
Private banks:
Cord Blood Registry (CBR)
http://www.cordblood.com/
Cryo-Cell International
http://www.cryo-cell.com/
ViaCord
http://www.viacord.com/
Hope this helps those of you who are trying to decide whether this is right for you...
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