Umbilical Cord Blood Bank

Did you bank your baby's cord blood? If so, why? If you chose not to, what was your reason?

We're expecting our baby at the end of December. I've been reading information on banking your baby's cord blood. It seems like it has the possiblity to be very beneficial, but it also seems to have a lot of unknowns, also (no guaruntee that you'll ever need it, for example). What are your thoughts on banking cord blood?

Public Comments

1. I would like to, but honestly we can't afford to do it.
2. My sister in law did it. I didn't because it cost like $2000.00 plus yearly storage fees. I know you can't put a price on something like that but I just didn't have the $ for it at the time.
3. Given the option, I'd have donated it - but it was only available in a very few hospitals when I had mine, and I didn't give birth at one of them.
4. i would have liked to 'just in case' but we couldnt afford it...
5. I banked my daughter's blood, it was VERY expensive. However, we've had some disorders, etc in our family that are treatable with cord blood so it seemed important to do so. If I know she's at risk why wouldn't I take that extra step?
6. I would love to be able to.....but in all actuality it is to expensive for us to do. If you have the money I would go ahead a do it. There are no guarantees that you'll need it but there are no guarantees that you won't need it! Good luck
7. I would have loved to have banked both my childrens blood but it is just too expensive for us. I know that you can't put a price on your childrens health but if the money isn't there......
8. i really want to but it is way to expensive for us, so i am deciding to donate it instead, its free and you can still help someone!
9. We did, because of many disorders. Dont know how much it cost.
10. To me, it seems like a really good way for the company to make a lot of money. The costs are high, and the chances that the cord blood will be needed are pretty low, so they are really making a lot of money on the deal. $2000 a year just to keep the blood in a freezer? I'd rather put that money in a college account. Also, since this is a new thing, what is the guarantee that it will actually be there when your child needs it (if they ever do)? What happens if the company goes out of business? What happens if there is a mix up? How do you know they actually saved your cord blood? If you can't tell, I'm a skeptic about things like this, so we didn't do it.
11. I donated both times. It's really the best thing to do - if you need the blood at some point in the future, chances are that it will still be in the public bankand if you don't need it, it goes to someone who does.
12. Hopefully, there's never a need for the blood, but storing it is a form of health insurance and we didn't want to regret our decision down the road. We initially thought cord blood banking was out of our price range, but we set up a gift registry at CBR and let our family and friends help defray the expense by contributing. Also used the $250 coupon from http://cord-blood-banking-coupon.com