Cord Blood Banking

My parents have offered to pay for banking our babies cord blood. Has anybody done it?? It's not commonly used where I live. I don't know anybody that's done it. Just wanted to get some opinions!!

 

I am also interested in this very much, as there are so many health problems that run in my family, including cancer, and I know cord blood can help leucemia(sp?). I figured I will start requesting info after 25 weeks. I do not even know how much it is.

 

My medical didn't do that with twins. I don't exactly remember why, it had to do with blood type or something

 

I asked my OB and both Peri Dr's and they all 3 recommended it. They said to look at it like an insurance policy. You may not ever need it (God willing), but if you do, you have it. Said if you have the $$, do it. My hubby & I are looking into it right now & they do give discounts for twins. And FYI, my Peri Dr. just told me this am that the 2 biggest, most reputable companies are CBR and Viacord. Hope that helps.

 

Hi,

I did it and am very glad I did. I haven't had a need for it and god willing I never will, but I did based on my friends experience. My friend did it for her first son and then found out he had sickle cell.

Her sister has sickle cell as well and was able to use his cord for treatment (she on average would be in the hospital 3-4 days a month). She is not cured from sickle cell but her ailments are much better due to it. She told me (along with my OB) that members of the family could use the cord as long as they are match, ...and that pretty much sealed the deal for DH and I.

My OB also told me that in our case (we are a blend mixed race family) that finding matches if something occurs would be harder to find so having it ready would be better for us. We also don't know what the future hold in medical breakthroughs and we don't want to live with "we should have done it" later in life if something was to occur.

BTW: we went with CBR. They have a twins discount (we did both of our boys - they had different blood types)

 

I have banked all of my children's cord blood. I have a coupon here somewhere for $250 off CBR if you want it! We used CBR and they were great to deal with. I had a friend use her baby's cord blood in December for her husband who has leukemia. I think of it like insurance, you may not ever use it but if you have to you'll be glad you saved it!

 

[SIZE=10pt]We banked our boys blood with ViaCord and had a really good experience it was actually very simple. MIL has MS really bad and is paralyzed from her neck down so we thought it would be nice to have that incase any new advances in medicine are made. Not to mention if god forbid one of the boys were to get sick it is nice to know it's there. They just send you out a kit before you deliver and you take it to the hospital that has glass viles for your blood and the babies. The nurses will draw your blood and when the babies are born the doctors draw blood from their cords and you pack it up call the currier from ViaCord and they come out and pick up the package. I think there is an initial fee and then a yearly fee to store the stem cells(which is what they are extracting from the blood). It was really easy.[/SIZE]

 

are there any companies that won't bank twins cord blood that you know of?

 

What is the cost of Cord Blood Banking? What kind of a discount do they give for twins?

 

QUOTE(christie76 @ Feb 27 2008, 06:56 PM) [snapback]643997[/snapback]
What is the cost of Cord Blood Banking? What kind of a discount do they give for twins?


in my brief research it's $1000-$2000 to set up or start up and about $125 a year for like 18 years

don't know about a discout I'll post what I find out though

 

Just got a quote from CBR: $3150 for both babies, including the 1st years storage. Storage is $250/yr.

 

QUOTE(first time mom at 34 @ Feb 26 2008, 07:01 PM) [snapback]641819[/snapback]
We also don't know what the future hold in medical breakthroughs and we don't want to live with "we should have done it" later in life if something was to occur.

BTW: we went with CBR. They have a twins discount (we did both of our boys - they had different blood types)


Same here. DH wasn't sure because of the cost. My argument to him was, it sounds expensive now, but if we were ever in need of it it would be worth paying any amount of $$ to us. Also, the fact that it can be used for other family members as well helped us to decide to do it. We did it for both our girls, they did have different blood types but we were going to do it for both of them anyway. I don't remeber the fees - I like to block out bad news. :winking0009: We didn't do it for our older DD and now I wosh we did.

As far as not doing it for twins, the only thing I have heard is if they are really small, there may not be enough blood. A friend of mine had her twins at 30 weeks, emergeny c section for HBP. One was 1 lb something and the other just over 2 lb. The smaller baby didn't have enough cordblood, or stem cells in the cord blood, or something...otherwise, I bet they LOVE to do twins, yes, they give a bit of a discount on the collection, but then you are paying two annual storage fees - what's not to like :winking0009: BTW we also did CBR

 

noone around here would do it for twins when I looked into it.

 

We have it with all 3 of our babes, we went through Viacord.

 

Thank-you so much for the info. I live in Nebraska & I'm not sure if we have access to more than one company here. I'm going to talk to my OB about it this week. I never even thought of a discount for twins. If they have the same blood type, can they be banked together?? I suppose I should just contact a couple companies & find out. I can't remember who said they had a coupon, but I would love it if you're willing to part with it. Thanks again!!

 

You can bank with any of the companies. Where you live doesn't matter. I live in WV and banked with CBR in Arizona. THey sent a courier to pick up our box at about 3 am and had it there the next day I think!

I have the coupon for $250 if you want it. Just PM me your email address and I'll send it to you

 

I heard and read that it is better to donate the cords instead of banking. First of all, it does not cost anything. Second, I read that a lot of times you can not use cord blood on the child who's cord it is since the cord blood is also lacking whatever the child is lacking.

Has anyone else heard about this?

 

QUOTE(ThreeLittleSnowflakes @ Feb 27 2008, 10:11 PM) [snapback]644129[/snapback]
Same here. DH wasn't sure because of the cost. My argument to him was, it sounds expensive now, but if we were ever in need of it it would be worth paying any amount of $$ to us. Also, the fact that it can be used for other family members as well helped us to decide to do it. We did it for both our girls, they did have different blood types but we were going to do it for both of them anyway. I don't remeber the fees - I like to block out bad news. :winking0009: We didn't do it for our older DD and now I wosh we did.

As far as not doing it for twins, the only thing I have heard is if they are really small, there may not be enough blood. A friend of mine had her twins at 30 weeks, emergeny c section for HBP. One was 1 lb something and the other just over 2 lb. The smaller baby didn't have enough cordblood, or stem cells in the cord blood, or something...otherwise, I bet they LOVE to do twins, yes, they give a bit of a discount on the collection, but then you are paying two annual storage fees - what's not to like :winking0009: BTW we also did CBR



I had 37 weekers that were 5-2 and 6-6 and neither of them had enough blood to bank. I chose not to pay for it, but donate it. The lady who asked me to donate basically said they keep it in case I need it for 18 years and then they would give it to someone in need if my kids were a match. It was free. Too bad we didnt have enough blood to bank. :-(

 

QUOTE(Terrebeth1 @ Mar 2 2008, 12:35 PM) [snapback]649175[/snapback]
I heard and read that it is better to donate the cords instead of banking. First of all, it does not cost anything. Second, I read that a lot of times you can not use cord blood on the child who's cord it is since the cord blood is also lacking whatever the child is lacking.

Has anyone else heard about this?


Yes. I am in favor of donating (if your hospital does it) and NOT of banking. IMO they charge too much and play on emotions. Most likely you will not ever use the cord blood. In most cases you also cannot use the cord blood on the same child.

I'm opting to not cut the cord as long as possible so the cord blood goes to my babies.

 

i would def do it if you have the money. if you dont have the money then dont stress..

the very key point is that you DONT need to do for all kids. The stem cells will never be useful for the kid who is sick. Otherwise they wouldnt be sick.


so if you have 3 kids -- then do it for 2. if you have 2 kids then you have to do it for 2 - so that they both have the others.

i hope that makes sense.

 

btw, if you are going to do...then do when you have the twins. the discount for twins is very very good. atleast with viacord it is

like 1/2 the price. 2 seperate kids would be ....