Cord Blood Banking & Delayed Cord Clamping

[wifeyvana]

My husband and I are looking into Cord Blood Banking but we would like to delay cord clamping until it stops pulsating. We asked the banking sales guy what the cost would be if we didn't have enough blood to bank after delaying clamping and I just had to share his response with you:

"I believe you are referring to the Bradley Method. As far as I know this method has no proven research behind it. I understand the theory behind it, that if more blood gets into the child then hopefully it makes the child healthier in some way. If this is something you plan on doing then it will affect the blood sample. The longer you wait to cut the cord the less blood and stem cells you will have to store.

I will give you my take on this. Obviously this is up to you two to decide. Cord blood is a proven treatment for nearly 80 different diseases and disorders. If you use the Bradley Method and do not have enough stem cells left over to benefit your child then what happens if they have cancer later in life, diabetes or traumatic brain injury. The chances of your child being healthy are very good even without the Bradley Method. Parents are storing these cells just incase their child becomes that small percentage of children who become ill or injured. Is the Bradley Method going to prevent your child from ever getting cancer, having diabetes or getting into a car accident? No. Cord blood won’t prevent it either but at least it could possibly help treat your child.

Also full siblings have a 75% chance of matching stem cells. So banking will provide some possible security for all the children that you have together. You could try to do both but the OB will not know how much blood is in the cord until after it has all been collected. There is no going back and if there is not enough to store you can’t get any more out of the cord after it’s gone.

When we get a collection to our lab we process and store the blood immediately and charge you the fees. I will follow-up with you about a week later once the MNC (stem cell) count is confirmed. If the cells come in at under 100 million then you will have the option to cancel the service and get a full refund except $150 cancellation fee. Some parents still bank in hopes of cell replication research getting approved that can multiply stem cells.

I would also consider our Cord Tissue storage program as a way to collect another set of stem cells."

I understand that this is just a job for him and he is mainly interested in making the sale but wow what a way to turn educated parents away from banking! I especially love how he keeps referring to it as the "Bradley Method"! I would love to hear your thoughts on this as well as your opinion on banking/delayed clamping.

[honeybee]

Honestly, I think blood banking is basically a scam, and that letter makes me feel ill, trying to play on a parent's fears and being totally ignorant about delayed chord blood clamping. Obviously, he doesn't know what the Bradley Method is.

I did give my ds1's chord blood to a DONOR bank, where it could be used for any matching person in need, but I would not pay to have my child's specific blood cells kept for our family's personal use out of fear of a later disease. And given what I now know about the benefits of chord blood for the baby, I just wouldn't bother trying to bank it.

I got to see a presentation by Dr. Morley, a researcher looking into the benefits of delayed chord clamping. It was sooo enlightening. Many babies could be saved NICU stays if they were just allowed to get all their chord blood. I wished I had some links saved.

http://www.brightsurf.com/news/headl..._too_soon.html


http://www.medindia.com/news/view_ne...?str=2&x=11437

[womenswisdom]

I would reply to him with some information about *delayed cord clamping* and the studies and benefits of it so that he doesn't continue spreading this misinformation to other parents who may have only heard of delaying but not done a ton of research yet. I would also copy his email and my reply to someone higher-up in the company so that they know what their CSCs are doing.

[wifeyvana]

Thank you! His letter really irked me! We weren't considering banking until our midwives recommended looking into it.

This was my response to him: Thank you for your response. This is actually not the "Bradley Method", although the Bradley Method courses do educate parents on the benefits of delayed cord clamping/cutting. I encourage you to look at the extensive scientific research available related to delayed cord clamping before counseling parents on this topic. There are many proven benefits (including reductions in anemia, intraventricular haemorrage and the need for transfusion) related to delayed cord clamping and I think you would be doing a disservice to your clients to state otherwise.

We will be in touch with you regarding how we will proceed after we've discussed this further.

[Jemika]

SMH and SMT

Ok #1 he needs to do his research, I understand that he wants to make a sale.
#2 if the baby gets the cord blood from the beginning then each child or sibling may not even come down with the diseases he mentioned.
Like I stated earlier his goal is to make a sale and sound as convincingly as possible.

[Jemika]

Best Wishes on your delivery, IMO if I had to choose btwn banking and delayed clamping, I'd do the delayed clamping, just MHO (My Honest Opinion)

[wifeyvana]

Originally Posted by Jemika

Best Wishes on your delivery, IMO if I had to choose btwn banking and delayed clamping, I'd do the delayed clamping, just MHO (My Honest Opinion)

Thanks, we will definitely be delaying clamping and I think at this point (especially after that guy's email) we won't be banking.

[*MamaJen*]

Sorry, that cracked me up about the Bradley Method thing. Here's another interesting article about premature clamping that just came out: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0524111728.htm

[BtotheG]

I agree with honeybee - I think banking is basically a scam.

I would ask for some cites/substantiation of the claim that cord banking has been proven effective to treat conditions and diseases.

I looked into this (and posted cites in a previous thread, though I'm too lazy to look it up right now) and everything I read said there are currently NO treatments from cord blood cells being used right now. Any benefits are purely theoretical at this point. There is research being done to develop such therapies, but there is no guarantee they would work.

Also, there is no guarantee that you collected a usable sample. It is also unlikely that even if therapies were developed, your child could use his/her own stem cells. If your child had a genetic disease, the stem cells would also carry the disease, and be unusable for treatment.

All of the above coupled with the thousands of dollars in costs and the hard sell = scam that preys upon new parents' worst fears. My opinion, of course.

ETA: Here is a link to an article in Nature about stem cell banking (it calls banking a "gamble" since treating a person with their own stem cells isn't proven):


http://www.nature.com/stemcells/2008...s.2008.48.html

It covers methods of collection besides just cord blood, but many of the issues are applicable.

[mambera]

Originally Posted by BtotheG

I agree with honeybee - I think banking is basically a scam.

[waterlight]

Great article links - thank you! Hubby and I have decided to delay clamping instead of getting cord blood collected for banking.

[Marcy&Dono]

I find it so amusing when people talk about the incredible power and benefits of cord blood, and then act like giving it to the baby at birth doesn't do anything. If cord blood is as amazing as they say, then doesn't it make sense that the baby would benefit from it right away?? Not to mention that babies are *meant* to have it (doubt our ancestors were cutting baby's cords right away like we do now).

I've been thinking about cord banking-- not for ourselves (that seems like a scam to me, with how much you pay vs the likelihood of actually using your cord blood sample) but then I read that about 75% of cord blood samples collected are unusable anyway (there's either not enough blood, or it coagulated, or something else went wrong so they couldn't store/use it for anything). With those odds, I'd much rather just let my baby have it from the get-go.

[AlexisT]

Private banking is a waste of money, IMO. The chances of having a disease that cord blood can treat, AND them developing the right therapy... not great.

I do feel obligated to say that public donation is NOT a scam. Of course, it also doesn't involve companies trying to get money out of you--it's 100% free to you. I didn't know about delayed cord clamping with my first but I'm not sure it would have been possible anyway (C section). I donated and I'm happy I did. Someone may have had a transplant that I helped to give. Your hospital needs to have cord blood banking facilities for this to be possible.

[St. Margaret]

That's terrible and hilarious. I have heard from friends getting trained (very crunchy friends!) that you CAN now do delayed clamping and collection, so I think that's a nice possibility-- I am firmly in the camp that the cord blood belongs to babies and will really benefit them. I adore my old OB for making me feel the cord before he'd clamp, not just telling me that's what he did Of course my midwife this time would never do anything but delay.

eta-- I would only collect to donate, let it go to good use now, plus I do NOT have the money for that, considering the low chance of usefulness. Great for folks who have money to spend however they want, but an easy choice for us, considering

[cchrissyy]

Honestly, I think blood banking is basically a scam, and that letter makes me feel ill, trying to play on a parent's fears and being totally ignorant about delayed chord blood clamping. Obviously, he doesn't know what the Bradley Method is.

I hope you send what eh wrote, and a breif disaproving letter, to his superiors. I suspect he wasn't authorized to make up that silly, manipulative answer : )

Also, I want to echo that public cord banking, such as donating for research purposes or treatment, is not a scam. that's just nice public service. It's a shame so much cord blood goes to waste. (I'm only 1 for 3)

[gemasita]

If cord blood is so precious, why not have more of it IN your baby instead of a bank?

[moonjunio]

I am having a homebirth and plan to collect cord blood for donation, if the midwives have the opportunity to collect it. My main midwife said that if things are not to hectic with baby or mom, then they can certainly do it.

It will be picked up by a courier. A blood draw from mom is also necessary so they know she's not passing on infections to the recipient. I'm using Cyrobank because you don't have to be at a participating hospital, they will even pick up internationally. You have to sign up before 34 weeks.

I certainly would not clamp any sooner just to collect cord blood. Baby has a right to her cord blood :-)

There are treatments that use cord blood, I have an acquaintance who has used it for MS. However I think it is very misleading to market it as a "wouldn't you be so sad if your child got sick" kind of thing. That kind of guilt trip just wastes a lot of blood that could be going to people who need it NOW. Some disease treatments have to be from a donor, not from the affected individual, if it's due to a genetic disorder. Adults often need two donors because of volume. A child sibling patient is usually the easiest match. If you have a family history of any concerning disease, then of course that could be a good idea to keep the blood for the family.

If you happen to be a minority or of mixed heritage, then baby's cord blood could be very important (either for banking or donation, depending on your situation) because most donors are caucasian.

Another use for donated cord blood, aside from proven treatments, is further studies to find viable treatments.

This is the best site I've seen about cord blood banking/donation and usage, very thorough and balanced information:
http://www.parentsguidecordblood.org/

I wouldn't get too mad at this guy, it is probably a form letter that he was trained to send (I work in customer support myself), he may only know what his managers tell him. Of course it isn't a bad idea to send some counter information so he knows the form letter is incorrect (and insulting), and I would absolutely let him know if it made you decide not to bank. That would probably get managerial attention.

[moonjunio]

Just looking over the website again, I saw that LifebankUSA also collects from anywhere in the US. In fact I may switch to them, because the updated blurb about Cryobank implies that they are a bit overwhelmed with donations currently:

"Lifeforce Cryobanks was known as Cryobanks International prior to June 2010. They started as a family cord blood bank in 1994, and still provide that service, but became famous since 2003 for enrolling mothers to mail in donations. Parent enthusiasm for this program has far exceeded the company's ability to accept donations. Those donations that cannot be accepted for unrelated transplants are either sold for research or discarded."

[moonjunio]

I just spoke with LifebankUSA and you can even donate your placenta as well! This is great for me because none of the other placenta-use ideas were really appealing to me, so knowing that it's going to advance research into important therapies is awesome.

You can also privately bank the placenta with them if you're going that route, see their website for more about placenta stem cells.

They are happy to send a courier to your residence for pickup after a homebirth. Just clear it with your midwife, mine said she can do the collection as long as there are no other pressing matters right after delivery.

LifebankUSA let me know that currently most donations are going to research rather than a public registry (i.e. will likely go to labs rather than patients, at this time). I do like that they made sure I knew what I was donating for.