Umbilical cord blood banking is a system that facilitates the storage of cord blood for future uses. Since the mid 1990's both private and public storage facilities have emerged due to increased potential of treating blood and immune system diseases using umbilical cord blood. Some experts recommend not using private facilities in most cases but there are good private companies who can provide storage as good as the majority of public cord blood banks.

Why Bank Umbilical Cord Blood?

Cord blood contains valuable progenitor cells and hematopoietic stem cells. These cells can be used to treat diseases of the blood and immune system and cancer.

Public Storage - The National Marrow Donor Program operates a website which lists public umbilical cord blood banks. Public facilities accept donations that can be used by anyone in need, however, there are strict regulations mandated by the medical community which need to be adhered to before public storage programs can add donated cord blood to there registry. It is important to note that once the blood is donated, all donor identifying information is removed so persons wishing to receive their own blood after it has been donated would not be able to do so.

Private Storage - Family/Private Bans like Public banks are subject to rules and regulations as set out by the FDA and State. Persons wishing to use private banks should seek out those which have applied for and received accreditation by the AABB which mandates semi-annual checks / audits to ensure that quality control measures meet the required standards. The typical fees for private banks range from $900-$2200 to safely store and preserve the umbilical cord blood for future use.

The benefits of umbilical cord blood banking is the role it plays in preserving cord blood for the treatment of many life threatening dieseases. The only real issues to cord blood banking is the long term viability of frozen cord blood. In theory it can be cryogenically frozen for an indefinite period but there is no way to support this as cord blood banking is a relatively new system.