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Ask Slashdot: Store Umbilical Cord Blood — and If So, Where?

Posted by timothy on from the freezer-at-the-overlook-hotel-is-good dept.

gambit3 writes "My wife and I are expecting our first child in 3 months, and one of the decisions we still have to make is whether to store our baby's cord blood. Even if we decide the upfront cost is worth it, there is still the question of using a public bank or a private one (and which one to trust), and whether to also store umbilical cord tissue for stem cells. Does you have any experience or suggestions?"

13 of 321 comments (clear)

  1. Public by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The chance that someone else is going to need your cord blood is way, way higher than the chance that you'll need it for your own family. Give it to the public bank.

    Plus, the private banks are damned expensive.

    1. Re:Public by MozeeToby · · Score: 3, Insightful

      0.25% lifetime probability that your kid will ever need it in their entire lifetime. The math just doesn't work out to make it worth it (IMO) to collect it for their own use, especially given that there are many circumstances where peripheral blood stem cells or bone marrow could be used just as easily and harvested when needed (cutting down that 0.25% even further).

  2. Donate by Elyas · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The scientific benefits are still uncertain, and the statistics as to whether your child would need it are pretty low. Better to donate, save your money, and increase the odds that someone will be helped

  3. Alternative: donate it by __aawmso8327 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's what we did with our first child, and will do with our second. In addition to the costs associated, banking it is a what-if scenario, and adult stem cells are already starting to show promise. We expect no problems justifying it to ourselves or our kids IF they develop some sort of problem AND first-party cord-blood treatment is the best or only solution for it: we're choosing to help people now, as opposed to potentially helping person later. If the efficacy situation were more apparent to us now, it would be a closer decision.

    1. Re:Alternative: donate it by ColdWetDog · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You would be better off buying lottery tickets for your kids with the money that you're spending. At least there is a chance it could be used for something.

      If you really feel the need to do this, use a public registry that uses the cord blood for real research, not a private company that's just hoping you will pay them every month.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    2. Re:Alternative: donate it by jeffmeden · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You would be better off buying lottery tickets for your kids with the money that you're spending. At least there is a chance it could be used for something.

      Consider that the cost of harvesting cord blood is about $1,500 and storing it per year is about $100. For 18 years you spend $3,300 or 1,100 powerball tickets.

      Odds of winning the powerball are 1,100 to 195,249,054 (0.0000056%)

      Odds of being afflicted with type 1 diabetes and being a part of a case study: 8 in 100,000 (0.00008%)

      So actually, you have better odds of actually needing and using your cord blood. Although, as many have suggested, donating is a noble option too.

      You forgot to roll in there the odds of successful cord blood treatment of your type 1 diabetes...

  4. People do this? by Nukenbar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As someone without children, WTF are you all talking about and why do people do this?

  5. Not Worth It by weszz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'd say not worth it...

    I have a 2.5 (mine) and a 1.5 year old (foster child) and to me if you would need this I think they would probably have an indication of it before the kid is born. Things are so far along these days with the 4d ultrasounds and such...

    Enjoy fatherhood. every 6 months they get more fun with the first 6 month being more of a family pet than a real person. Now at 2.5 years we are running around the backyard having squirt gun fights and she is coming up with all kinds of crazy views on the world. It goes quickly...

    But yea, if you and the wife are healthy and she took care of herself the past number of months, the chances of ever needing it are very low.

  6. by the time your kid will need it by circletimessquare · · Score: 4, Insightful

    the tech will exist to derive stem cells from an adult

    so you don't need it

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  7. Re:Drink it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I figured "uterine vag-steak vendine machine" gives it away as an intentionally silly post.

  8. Re:Drink it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And my dog eats its own shit, that doesn't make it a good idea.

  9. Re:ViaCord by waives · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If your child has a bad genetic disorder, chance are that someone else's (healthy) cord blood would be more useful to them. But if no one is going to donate, where will it come from?

  10. Re:CBR is the one I used by geekoid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Putting it into a college fund would have been far more helpful to your children.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect