Question about cord blood banking?

Question

I have been reading alot about cord blood banking, and i am not all for it (costly) i am also not against it! i do get it helps people, however here is the question, if you opt not to pay the high prices of banking it yourself, do the doctors do it anyway? Or i guess what i am asking is what do they do with the cord blood that people dont ask to donate?? does anyone know how it works or have you done it before?

Answer 1

If you dont privatly bank or donate to the public bank, it goes into the biowaste.

I encourage everyone who does not want or cant privatly bank to donate to the public bank.  You can get info on how to do that from the National Marrow Donors Program http://www.marrow.org.  That is for the US.  If you are in a different country search for your country's marrow program or email me to help you find it.

Unfortunatly right now because of a lot of misconception that it is the same as embryonic stem cells, most faith based hospitals do not allow you to donate or privatly bank, and you may have to do leg work if your choosen hospital is not set up to accept donations automatically.

Here is a link for a webcast by BMT Infonet (bmt stands for bone marrow transplant, it is a support site for transplant patients) that will talk about the updates on cord blood

http://www.bmtinfonet.org/webcastcord/

Answer 2

It is treated as medical waste unless the mother decides to either donate it to a public registry or to store it privately.

There is no greater gift  mom can give than to give it to a registry.  How many chances do you get to save someone's life?

Banking privately is a phenomenal waste of money.  There are almost no situations in which a cord blood would be preferentially used for someone in the family.  (Notice I said "almost"---but it is still waayyy more likely to be useful if it is donated.)

Answer 3

I don't know for sure but I'd suspect that they dispose of it like they do other by products of the birth like the placenta.  It would be unethical to take it without the families permission.