Cord blood banking is increasingly becoming a choice that most new parents go to to ensure that there is biological insurance for their child’s future. It involves collecting and preserving the cord blood from a newborn baby’s umbilical cord for potential use in medical therapies. The cord blood contains young stem cells that are similar to those in the bone marrow, but with a greater capability for replication.

Given the regenerative properties of these cord blood stem cells and their ability to repair damaged tissue, they can be used to treat malignant cancers like acute lymphoblastic leukemia and Hodgkin’s Disease. They can also be used to treat immune system deficiencies and disorders like DiGeorge Syndrome and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, and blood cell defects like Chediak-Higashi Syndrome and Congenital Neutropenia. Additionally, they can treat metabolic diseases and disorders like Gaucher Disease and Sanhoff Disease. There are around 80 health conditions that cord blood stem cells can currently treat.

Current research and clinical trials also suggest that the cord blood stem cells may have the potential to treat Rheumatoid Arthritis, Cerebral Palsy, Cardiomyopathy, Diabetes (Type 2), Alzheimer’s Disease, Spinal Cord Injury, Stroke, Multiple Sclerosis, Traumatic Optic Neuropathy, and other health conditions.

As clinical research in stem cell therapy continues to develop rapidly, the chances are high that it may lead to many medical breakthroughs to treat and, hopefully, cure various currently incurable diseases. So, by preserving your children’s umbilical cord stem cells, you will make it possible for them to receive and benefit from any of the new therapies, should they ever need them.

Cord blood banking

You can choose to bank the cord blood in a private bank or a public bank. Both types of banks have to comply with FDA regulations and follow certain procedures for collecting, screening, preserving, and storing stem cells for future use. However, public banks will only accept cord blood samples as donations and will make them readily and freely available to anyone who wants them for research purposes or for use in medical treatment. Private banks, on the other hand, will reserve your child’s cord blood stems for the child’s or your family’s exclusive use and never make it available to other parties.

Another difference is that public banks don’t charge you for their services, while the cord blood banking prices may be on the high end for the private banks.

Key factors determining cord blood banking prices:

The overall procedures required for public and private cord blood banking are numerous and also thorough. That is necessary to ensure the safe and correct collection, testing, and processing of the umbilical cord blood as well as its preservation using state-of-the-art cryogenic methods. These procedures are not inexpensive and the banking will require high initial and continuous annual payments for as long as you want to keep the cord blood samples.

Let us consider some of the key factors that determine cord blood banking prices.

•  Both the public and private banks must maintain their licensure by ensuring they have regulatory and quality systems.

•  It is mandatory to screen the mother’s blood for Hepatitis, HIV, and other infectious diseases.

•  To obtain the stem cells from the blood components, it is necessary to separate them by first processing the cord blood.

•  The lab will use a cell counting machine to measure how many nucleated cells there are in the sample. Ideally, there should be no fewer than 900 million nucleated cells.

•  The lab will take a CFU assay culture from the sample to check if it can grow new cells.

•  The lab will take stem cell samples for quality testing prior to freezing them.

•  The lab will make sure that the stem cell samples are not contaminated with bacteria or fungi.

•  The lab must add a cryoprotectant to the stem cell samples prior to freezing them. It will ensure that the stem cells won’t burst after the freezing procedure.

•  The lab will use cryogenic nitrogen freezers to freeze the samples at a temperature of -196 degree C.

•  To correctly match donors and patients for possible transplants, the public banks must use the expensive HLA typing test.

•  Most health insurance companies generally do not offer coverage for cord blood banking.