Cord Blood Banking/Donation?

[Mommel]

I realize this discussion has come up before, but it has been a while.

What's your take on cord blood banking and/or donation? While people in my life could potentially benefit from the research done with such donations (stem cell research for things like MS, etc), my midwife tells me that it's only done with immediate cord clamping, a practice which shows an increased risk of anemia and brain injury to the infant (http://www.cordclamp.org). Is this like stealing blood (and possibly potential brain function) from my baby? It sounds like it to me... I'd like to hear opinions.

[Abraisme]

While I'm having a HM and it really isn't an option, I still wouldn't do it.  I believe that the baby deserves that blood at birth.  We delay cord clamping as long as possible.

[LeighPF]

I have been told you can do delayed clamping and donation.

[laohaire]

You can attempt to donate after delaying cord clamping.

I have no numbers (I don't think anyone does) regarding how likely it is to get enough blood to donate after cord clamping, but my understanding from looking into this is that sometimes you can, and most times you won't.

My personal opinion is that the blood belongs to the baby, and the first day of life is not the best day for an involuntary blood donation. However, I think it's certainly worthwhile to TRY to extract any excess blood after the cord stops pulsating. Of course, this also brings up issues with the definition of delayed clamping, as many OBs consider delaying 30 seconds or a minute to qualify (it doesn't). Other OBs clamp immediately and just delay cutting (uh, what's the point of that?).

I have personally attempted to bank after truly delayed cord clamping. There was zero blood to draw in my case - which makes me all the more glad my baby had it. (And there was really nothing - 2 midwives and an RN, my own mother, tried). I get the idea it's more common for there to be some blood left, but not necessarily enough to donate or bank.

[laohaire]

Sorry, I forgot to include some information regarding the costs of cord blood banking. Donation is free, of course. Some people plan to bank the cord blood, and that costs money. You pay a fee upfront for all the processing and such, and then a yearly fee to maintain the storage. My mother really wanted to do this. I did not. I said, fine, we can attempt it, but not without my baby getting the first shot at the blood. So my mom paid for the deposit (roughly $1000). The company we used agreed to refund us minus a small fee if the collection didn't succeed. So, since the collection didn't succeed, we did get all our money back except roughly $100, which is entirely fair given that they sent all the collection materials and spent some customer service hours and filing and such on us. In our case, the refund was no problem and they didn't play any games.

I wanted to share that experience in case someone had their heart set on banking - because you really wouldn't be out much if the collection didn't succeed. And think about it, if there is not enough blood left to collect, that means your baby needed it.

I do acknowledge that there may be some extreme cases where the donation of this blood may be worth considering even if the baby doesn't get it all. Clearly most babies survive premature cord clamping. But I think it's easy to see that it's not ideal at all.