Is Cord Blood Necessary?

Some Concerns
stem cells
The policy also points out that if cord clamping is done too soon after birth, the infant may be deprived of a placental blood transfusion, resulting in lower blood volume and increased risk for anemia later in life. Finally the AAP recommends that because this issue can be emotionally stressful, consent should be obtained during a prenatal visit and before the onset of labor.


To most people, the issue comes down to money.  If you had unlimited money, you would spend a few thousand to even miniscually increase the chance of your child enjoying good health.  However, since you probably don’t have unlimited money, you will have to decide how to best spend and save for your children’s future. If you invested the Viacord fee of $1550 plus $150 for the courier at your child’s birth in the stockmarket, you would have $12,210 by the time he turned 21.  That would certainly help pay for college or even his medical insurance insurance after he graduated from college.  The odds are that your child will need a college education more than a autologous bone marrow transplant.  So if you have to chose between one or the other, make the right choice by saving the money for his future.

How to Understand Cord Blood Banking and Banks

A free, unbiased source of information

Every expectant parent today faces a tough and irreversible choice:  Should you bank your newborn child’s cord blood?  If you are like most expectant parents, you are perhaps overwhelmed and confused by the choice.  On one hand you receive tons of marketing from the cord blood companies touting the important benefits of blood banking.  On the other hand, you’ve heard that there is limited medical value to storing your child’s cord blood and the costs are very high.
cord blood banking

Here is a quick summary of why you should bank your baby’s cord blood:

It might just save your baby’s or another family member’s life at some point in the future
You will only have one chance to bank your baby’s cord blood; the moment immediately after birth.
30%-70% of people who need bone marrow transplants can not find a match.  Finding a proper match is especially problematic for African-Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, and people of mixed ethnicity.  By banking your baby’s stem cells, the odds of having a proper match for the baby or another family member improve.
Future medical advances might allow stem cells to treat even more diseases and be used in more transplant cases than current medical practices.
I’ve tried to summarize the argument for banking cord blood as succinctly as possible.  To gather more information, you can click on the links of the cord banks on the left of the page.  Each bank has a detailed (although biased) argument in favor of blood banking.  
In addition, the following articles provide some interesting reading:

Cord Blood Banks Review


blood banks



1.  Price – Price levels differ dramatically

2.  Service levels







4.  Most importantly, before you sign up make sure you read the fine print on the contract closely!


What is Cord Blood?

Quite simply, cord blood is the remaining blood from your baby’s umbilical cord and placenta after birth.  Cord blood is loaded with our “stem cells” which are orgins of the body’s immune and blood system and may be the orgin of other organs and important systems in the body.  Stem cells are important because they have the ability to regenerate into other types of cells in the body.
