Cord Banking Striking at the Wallet of Parents
Parents who are expecting a baby have a great deal of decisions to make before the birth of the baby. They have to settle on everything from the name of the baby to whether they are going to breast-feed or bottlefed to their choice and a pediatrician. There’s a bundle of things to settle as the baby’s birth nears. One of the things that a lot of new parents do not realize is available, is the ability for storing umbilical cord blood. Yes you heard me right, umbilical cord blood.
Why is a person’s own cord blood critical? The thinking behind this is that there is only one opportunity in a person’s life to collect their cord tissue and and that, of course, is following the birth of the individual. In every day practice, the cord is generally thrown away following delivery of the baby anyhow, but it is chuck full of a person’s blood stem cells.
Looking at the controversy, the problem has not been over the subject of medically storing the cord blood alone, but the difficulties crop up from the big business entities marketing this as a vital service to have when there are public cord blood banks accessible. Storing cord blood as a recurring cost from these for-profit corporations and the price can be relatively excessive and the upfront storage expenses ranging from $600-$1800 and a recurring fee of usually somewhere around $100.
Lots of people like the fact that a child’s own blood instead of relying on publicly donated umbilical cord blood if the need arises later. Cord blood is a viable medical option for some health problems that can arise in the course of the child’s life. It is true that the stem cells in the cords are utilized to remedy a handful of pediatric disorders like sickle cell anemia, leukemia (although in genetic cases an individual’s own cord blood cannot be used), in addition to a other uncommon metabolic health issues. It is also utilized for bone marrow transplants. Presently if you did not pay to store the cord from your child, one can be used from a sibling or even an unrelated person that is compatible. You can even opt to bestow your baby’s cord blood to a publicly owned blood bank.
Most parents look at it like insurance in case something happens and will give a yearly fee that the big money corporations charge to store a child’s cord blood. There are other options available if you don’t pay to store your child’s cord blood. One such cord donor program is the Sibling Donor Cord Blood Program in Oakland, California.
One of the major problems with for-profit corporations promoting individual storage of this kind is the undeniability that there is no proven evidence that it is needed in most children. Just because your own blood was not stored, does not mean that your child will not have treatments available in the future using donate cord blood. There is a lot of cord blood bank at all times nationally that is dominated by the other families. So the chances are not being cord blood available is unlikely.
As a parent, you have to make the choice. Do you want to pay for cord blood needlessly? Do you have a reason to believe that your child may need to cord blood? It may be that you can afford to pay for private cord blood banking, and are thrilled to have that piece of mind, by all means do so. Just don’t say we didn’t warn you that it might not be necessary.
Read about Private Cord Blood Banking at the site to learn more about Baby Girls
