Chemistry Book

There are many important decisions that a parent to be has to make, some short term and some long term. A few being the baby’s name, whether to go for natural or caesarean childbirth, whether it is better to breast feed or formula feed the baby, which paediatrician to go to and many more. Now they are burdened with one more decision, whether or not to bank the umbilical cord blood of their baby and to go for private or public cord blood bank. The hassle about banking cord blood was not in the lives of pregnant women until the late twentieth century when the utilities of stem cell treatment came in to the knowledge of scientists.

Before making the decision it is best to compare the two kind of facility that preserves the umbilical cord blood. Let’s talk about the public banks that store the cord blood. The public banks accept voluntary donations and store the cord blood only if the parents decide to do it at no fees though they do not have the capability to collect cord blood at a mass level because of the unavailability of proper facilities; if the cord blood does not contain the necessary amount of cells then they are termed inadequate and thrown away; there is no guarantee that the donated cord blood will be available to the donating parents, in case they need it for their child. All things said and done donating the child’s umbilical cord blood can still be a good idea as it may aid in saving other lives and also help in further research.

The private cord blood banks on the other hand do not have any kind of restriction as to the cell count and collection facilities, but to be honest they can burn a hole in your pocket. For a decide fees they can store the cord blood for up to twenty years. However they have been widely panned for their aggressive marketing tactics and sometimes for misinforming or making false promises.