Midwives, do you routinely draw cord blood from infants born to type O mothers?

[wombjuice]

Just wondering how many of you draw cord blood from infants born to type O mothers and keep it refrigerated in case the newborn develops pathological jaundice?  I don't know any midwives personally who do this, though I've seen it suggested in a few sources.

Thanks!

[NZmumof2]

Not a midwife - I'm a General Practitioner / Family Practitioner practising in a rural primary care facility and we certainly take cord blood from all babies and store it - send it if the mother is Rh -ve but otherwise refrigerate in case it is needed for pathological jaundice.  All the other facilities I've worked in in both NZ and Australia also do this.

My 2c

Anna

[wombjuice]

Thank you for contributing, NZmumof2!  How long do you keep the cord blood before disposing of it?  Many homebirth midwives do not have labs or refrigerators designated for this purpose, so storing the cord blood from multiple clients' newborns may not be practical.  I suppose a way around this would be to store the cord blood in the parents' refrigerator.  I'll have to look into the legalities of this.

Anyone else care to weigh in?

[mothercat]

I take blood from the cord of O pos. moms (unless dad is also O pos.). However, I don't store it. I send it off to the lab and have them do a blood type and antibody screen (Coombs test).  If the Coombs comes up positive, we may have a baby that will develop pathological jaundice and I want  an order for a bili blanket and a DME company ready to go.

I have only had a handful of times when the Coombs came up positive. One of those was weak and the baby never developed jaundice. The other 2 kids  were from the same family and the oldest 2 siblings (hospital births) were under bili lights for several days. We expected it and with baby #3 she only had an overnight stay. Baby #4 was also positive but had the results back in a couple of hours after birth, got him started with a bili blanket right away and he never required hospital treatment.

What is the reason for storing the blood, and how much are you storing?

Linda