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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?"

19 of 321 comments (clear)

  1. CBR is the one I used by Zondar · · Score: 5, Informative

    I think their website is www.cordblood.com

    You pay an up-front fee for the collection and first year storage, and a smaller fee each year for storage.

    1. Re:CBR is the one I used by Defenestrar · · Score: 5, Informative
      Note that: "Our state-of-the-art technology is backed by a $50,000 quality service guarantee that your baby's stem cells will engraft if they are ever needed for transplant."

      However the number of likely candidates for cord blood treatment is extremely small (pretty much all experimental and not FDA approved these days). Crop the number of bank withdraws they're likely to receive (very few) by the price they charge per deposit (roughly $2k), and that's not much of a guarantee by the measure of mouth-where-the-money-is. Now if that's a measure of their confidence for a life saving treatment... you might want to double think.

      Secondly, there isn't a single word in their FAQ about the repository technology they are using. Are they storing the cells in -80 freezers or in LN2? What are the stats on half-life and other successful viability studies? Where are the links to successful case studies of cord blood stem cell treatment? They have research links, but most are either still animal studies or non-cord stem cell therapies.

      The point is, they might have a great thing here, but at the moment they're selling vaporware. Sure, it may eventually come out just like Duke Nukem Forever, but it may not be released in time for your child. There's plenty of evidence that most of the stem-cell treatments out there are possible with donor registries (e.g. like bone marrow) or even adult tissue (not even stem cells - I was just at a conference last week where I saw a video of a modified inkjet print out a heart seeded with a patients own heart tissue). The fliers these type of businesses get the hospital and OB/GYN to hand out has a core message of: "it'll be your fault if your baby gets sick and dies if you don't give us a lot of money right now." It's surrounded by fluffy baby graphic design, but their business model should raise a few ethical eyebrows.

      Of course who knows - they might be right. Maybe someone will someday invent a way to use cord blood with today's harvesting techniques (note that the FAQ doesn't say anything about sample freezing until it's already been through the mail) and your baby will die without it... no pressure, right?

      Now on the flip side, I do know people in the repository business and they think this sort of thing has potential to work, but there's already plenty of argument to that effect around here today - so I thought I'd point out the other questions which should be asked.

  2. Oh really? by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 5, Funny

    So, this "wife" of yours supposedly had "sex" with you? Whatever! What next mods? Are we going to get stories about Slashdot posters getting tired of their supermodel girlfriends interrupting their Battlefield 3 matches?

    --
    I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
    1. Re:Oh really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Wait, your supermodel girlfriend doesn't play Battlefield 3? You gotta dump that bitch.

  3. 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 xyzzy42 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Exactly. This is why my wife and I decided to donate our children's cord blood. Keep in mind that your OB might charge to collect the cord blood (ours did). Many OB's will waive their cord blood fee for donations, but not for private banking.

    2. Re:Public by Reapy · · Score: 5, Informative

      If we knew we could have donated at no cost and someone could have used it, my wife and I most likely would have done so. To me the whole thing seemed sort of like a big rip off, or something I'd do if I had excess money laying around. They like to gouge you for a lot of stuff involving your kids, its easy to whip people up into a panic about doing EVERYTHING YOU POSSIBLY CAN TO PREVENT EVERYTHING.

      Either way it feels a shame that it could have been used to help someone instead of it ending up as a puddle on the floor. I guess part of the reason I didn't save it is that there wasn't an urge to collect it if we weren't going to ourselves. If it was that precious hospitals would most likely not let it go to waste.

    3. Re:Public by Dahamma · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yeah, here's a great scam idea:

      1. take $4000 from each customer
      2. toss the tissue in a cheap walk in frreezer
      3. when a customer actually needs it, apologize that there was an equipment malfunction, and give them their money back (hell, give them a 10x their money back guarantee - preferably in a contract that waives other legal recourse)
      4. disgruntled customer gives service a bad review. That still means 99.75% (probably way *less* than 0.25% would ever use it, but let's be generous) of your customers are "happy", which is pretty damn good customer satisfaction!

      Except for possibly #2, this sounds surprisingly close to the business plans of the nominally legitimate companies doing this. And even if they are reputable, who's to say a private company will last for 18 years in what seems like a bit of a scam in the first place. I agree with other posters - donate it to a reputable non-profit service and keep the money for something useful.

  4. Well, this IS slashdot... by Reasonable+Facsimile · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...store it in the cloud.

  5. It's a personal decision, but consider donation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://marrow.org/Get_Involved/Donate_Cord_Blood/Donate_Cord_Blood.aspx

  6. 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!
  7. ViaCord by jcaldwel · · Score: 5, Informative

    My son was born a little over a year ago, and I selected ViaCord as a cord blood bank. We evaluated a few, and they seemed to be more competent than other options. It's important to get the "collection kit" up front, and have it with you in the hospital... at least in my case, the hospital does not provide any of the supplies. Also, your wife will need to make sure that the OB/GYN is aware ahead of time about your decision to store the blood.

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

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

  9. Unless you're rich, don't bother by sweatyboatman · · Score: 5, Informative

    The cord blood banking industry is right on the border between speculative medicine and outright scam. It's insanely profitable, which is why every doctor's office is littered with pamphlets for competing cord blood banks.

    There's a vanishingly small likelihood that your child will have some otherwise untreatable disease that the cord blood will help with. Most of the things they say cord blood can help with (like genetic defects) actually wont help your child, since the cord blood has the same faulty genetics. The banks also tout the potential for cord blood use in future therapies. However, it's likely that any treatment that uses cord blood would be just as effective using stem cells.

    So what are you banking, in this case? I have no idea. The cord blood might be helpful for your next child, I guess.

    Another thing to keep in mind is in order to harvest the cord blood, you have to cut the cord before it stops pulsating (that is, before all the blood in the cord has reached the baby). There's a growing body of evidence that your baby benefits from this blood, and the cord should be left intact. So banking your baby's cord blood may actually harm your child. Of course, whatever the effect it's unlikely life threatening, but it does seem unnecessary.

    --
    It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
  10. We thought about it.... and elected to 'donate' it by gus+goose · · Score: 5, Informative

    ... for both our kids. We decided to 'donate' the cord blood (was free, and then you get 'preferential' access later if you happen to need some from the 'bank' later).

    Turns out our kids were both born on Sunday evenings, and they do not collect blood on Sundays.....

    Now I read all sorts of things about keeping the umbilical cord 'whole' for longer helps with anaemia... i.e. letting the cord 'drain' for longer is better for the baby. There's debate about how long the draining should take, but, it precludes the donation of the core blood.

    If I were to be doing it again (and I'm not planning to...), I would talk with the O/B and delay the cutting of the cord for a few more minutes, and then forgo the donation of the blood entirely.

    The prospects of tangible short-term benefits far outweighs the unlikely need for obscure treatments at some uncertain point in the future from some company that may or may not be around when you need them, and they may or may not have destroyed your tissues anyway, for a condition that may (at that time) be curable without cord blood anyway.

    gus

    --
    .. if only.
  11. Donate it to your child! by Whorhay · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Seriously, donate it to your own child at their birth. Read up on the benefits of delayed cord clamping. The only situation that I've heard of where it's not worth it is where an emergency arises during the birth that requires the child and mother be seperated ASAP to safe a life. The umbilical cord and placenta contain a significant amount of blood which is the childs. Clamping and severing the cord immediately can basically make the child anemic right off the bat. It only takes a few minutes for the cord to finish transfering that blood to the child, so give it some time. It may also be possible to still harvest the cord for storage or donation but I'm not sure.

    Anyways google "delayed umbilical cord clamping"

  12. Re:WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    [...]of all five of my children[...]

    Once I pay the hospital bill the birth process is over.. Next!

    Next ? You might wanna slow down after 5 you know

  13. Let the baby keep it, he/she needs it by beberly37 · · Score: 5, Informative

    When a baby is born, blood continues to flow through the cord for a while giving the baby much needed nutrients. It is common practice for midwifes. Baby comes out, goes straight to mama's bare chest for skin-to-skin heat transfer and up-close pheromones (leaving the naturally protective goo). In a minute or so the chord goes from bright full-of-blood colored to dull gray and empty and it no longer pulses. Clamp and cut the chord then. We did this with our now 7 month old, she was back up to birth weight at the three day check up.