I was curious about cord blood banking and felt what could possibly be bad about collecting this blood anyway... my main concern was cost both up front and on going, as well as could it even be done in a birth center?
The benefits touted by the companies selling this service, as well as sci fi movies I have seen and medical rumours we hear, I thought hey, saving her own stem cells make sense! What an amazing way to provide a biological safety net for her if she ever were to need to, I don't know, grow a new kidney or got a disease that we could give the means to cure!
Well I am learning very quickly, by NOT looking at the cord blood banking companies themselves but midwives and other sources about some of the downsides that I hadn't even thought of.
I started with this blog http://midwifethinking.com/2011/02/10/cord-blood-collection-confessions-of-a-vampire-midwife/ . She is a lady who used to collect this blood for hospitals and asked women to donate the blood to public stem cell banks, I was surprised to learn of just how much blood it deprives a newborn infant of! It far outweighs what you are allowed to take from a child at any other point in their life, and made me doubly glad that we are going the natural route, and not clamping the cord but rather waiting until after the placenta is delivered. This will maximize the blood and oxygen transfer and generally give our little girl the best start in life. Without that blood she would be deprived of a large amount of her blood volume, that doesn't sound like the way to go.
There was a link from that blog to a full blown medical article.
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/search/download;jsessionid=4t5e38eg7k9nh.alice?pub=infobike%3a%2f%2fspringer%2fjpe%2f2011%2f00000020%2f00000001%2fart00008&mimetype=text%2fhtml
Needless to say I have decided that this is not for us. I have since found out that there is an extremely slim chance if any at all that the blood could be preserved correctly, be needed and available by the right person in the family let alone the child herself. The risks and costs far outweigh the benefits with no guarantee that the cells could even be viable or useful if she or anyone else in the family were to need them.
The benefits touted by the companies selling this service, as well as sci fi movies I have seen and medical rumours we hear, I thought hey, saving her own stem cells make sense! What an amazing way to provide a biological safety net for her if she ever were to need to, I don't know, grow a new kidney or got a disease that we could give the means to cure!
Well I am learning very quickly, by NOT looking at the cord blood banking companies themselves but midwives and other sources about some of the downsides that I hadn't even thought of.
I started with this blog http://midwifethinking.com/2011/02/10/cord-blood-collection-confessions-of-a-vampire-midwife/ . She is a lady who used to collect this blood for hospitals and asked women to donate the blood to public stem cell banks, I was surprised to learn of just how much blood it deprives a newborn infant of! It far outweighs what you are allowed to take from a child at any other point in their life, and made me doubly glad that we are going the natural route, and not clamping the cord but rather waiting until after the placenta is delivered. This will maximize the blood and oxygen transfer and generally give our little girl the best start in life. Without that blood she would be deprived of a large amount of her blood volume, that doesn't sound like the way to go.
There was a link from that blog to a full blown medical article.
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/search/download;jsessionid=4t5e38eg7k9nh.alice?pub=infobike%3a%2f%2fspringer%2fjpe%2f2011%2f00000020%2f00000001%2fart00008&mimetype=text%2fhtml
Needless to say I have decided that this is not for us. I have since found out that there is an extremely slim chance if any at all that the blood could be preserved correctly, be needed and available by the right person in the family let alone the child herself. The risks and costs far outweigh the benefits with no guarantee that the cells could even be viable or useful if she or anyone else in the family were to need them.
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