If you have made the decision to save the umbilical cord blood after the birth of your child, you have two options for doing so. You could choose to have it privately stored at a private bank, or you could donate it to a public blood banking system. There are pros and cons of each, and only you can decide which is best for you.
Here are the main reasons for donating to a public cord blood banking institution:
Donating is more economical because it's free. It will not cost you anything to donate umbilical cord blood to a public banking system. Private banks charge on average $100 yearly for storage. Only you can decide if the money spent is worth the cost for something you might not even use.
By donating umbilical blood to public banking institutions, you are giving a chance at life to other people without any expense on your part. Should you ever need your donated stem cells, they will still be there for your use if nobody needed them before you. If you end up never needing them, your donation may provide life-saving value to someone who desperately did need it.
Donating umbilical blood in the public banking system does not limit your access to it unless it was used. Public and government-regulated cord blood banking institutions give priority to donors if they need their donated blood. The likelihood is slim that your donated umbilical blood will be used. Lawrence Petz from StemCyte - a top public/private umbilical blood bank - estimates that only 5% of banked donations are used.
Here are the main reasons for private blood banking storage:
While your donation might not get used, it is still quite possible that it will not be there for you in the event that you need it. The probability of 1 in 20 is too high for some people to take the chance.
Stem cell research is advancing at a rapid rate. Medical advancements in the use of stem cells are being announced nearly every month. The latest indications are that, under the right circumstances, stem cells in cord blood can be "teased" to grow into other types of tissue rather than blood. Having your cord blood stored at a private bank means that you retain ownership and it will be there for you in the future should medical procedures advance to the point where you will need it. Owning and storing it privately is a type of medical insurance.
There are some initial fees to set up your account and registration. After that, the yearly fee for private cord blood storage is approximately $100 per year. That is a very minimal cost.
Some critics of private cord blood banking argue that public storage is safer due to the fact that private banks seek profit. However, that is not a valid argument. If a public cord blood bank mishandles the donation in any way, it can simply be labeled an accident and the institution continues to exist. Conversely, if a private bank mishandles a donation, accident or not, that news will drive its customers away to a safer facility, and the business will cease to exist. Because private banks are operating for a profit, their very existence depends upon how well they handle and store the donations. Private cord blood banks are every bit as safe as public ones. When choosing between public or private, safety of storage need not be a concern.
The primary benefit to cord blood banking is that it provides a type of medical insurance. This insurance is not from a financial prospective, but rather takes the form of having the necessary medical building blocks available should they be needed in the event of certain illnesses and diseases. Those medical building blocks are the stem cells found in umbilical cord blood.
In the past 5 or 6 years, there have been dramatic medical advances in the arena of stem cell research, and more discoveries are announced practically every month. Many doctors and researchers see great potential in the use of stem cells to reverse or cure many severe, life-threatening diseases. With these facts in mind, many parents are choosing to preserve the stems cells found in umbilical cord blood after birth. There are no health risks in doing so. The primary risk is that the yearly $100 fee for storage will be wasted in the event that the stem cells are never needed.
More and more parents are taking notice of the advances in stem cell research. Here are some highlights:
Transplant science is constantly improving. Several companies are bringing to market methods of "expanding" the stem cell population in the laboratory, and these methods are starting to be applied in clinical trials.
The evolution from pluripotent stem cells down to blood stem cells is currently poorly understood. The latest indication is that, under the right conditions, stem cells in cord blood can be teased to grow into other types of tissue besides blood. This would open up an entire new realm of potential treatment through the use of stem cells.
As a result of these advances, it is not unreasonable to hope that cord blood may eventually be used to treat a wider variety of auto-immune and degenerative diseases than is currently being done. If so, (and there are solid indications by researchers that this indeed is the case), it makes perfect sense to consider private cord blood banking.
The arguments in favor of private banking are several:
1. As today's children grow up and some of them develop cancer as adults, autologous (self) cord blood transplants will become more common used. Pediatric cancers and adult cancers are completely different diseases at the cellular level (to learn more about cancer visit the website of the National Cancer Institute). While pediatric cancer patients rarely receive autologous transplants, among adult cancer patients the autologous transplants are more common than transplants from donors.
2. Recent news reports constantly announce new medical advances using stem cells. Future applications will probably include tissue repair to various organs of the body.
3. Families should consider is whether the odds given for the "average baby" apply to them. Some families do have a higher predisposition to cancer and immune disorders, and would be far more likely to benefit from cord blood banking than the statistics indicate.
4. If your family, especially your children, are of mixed ethnic background, it may be impossible to find an adult bone marrow donor who is a perfect match. In that event, cord blood from even a partially matched sibling would be invaluable if a stem cell transplant is necessary.