After a baby is born, a small amount of blood is left in the umbilical cord that remains attached to the placenta. The placenta is a vascular organ that helps your baby to nourish during pregnancy. It contains stem cells that you can store in a cord blood storage for free or donate it for free, depending on where you give birth.

Here a few pros and cons of cord blood storage or cord blood banking.

Pros Of Cord Blood Storage

Umbilical cord blood saves lives

The cord blood is rich in stem cells that can change into all sorts of a blood cell. These blood cells can help treat a disease that harms the blood and immune system, such as leukemia, cancers, sickle-cell anemia, a metabolic disorder, etc. Cord blood storage can help patients match blood cells during transplant, as gathered during birth from the umbilical cord.

A successful procedure

The outcome of cord blood transplant has improved over the decades. Researchers have learned more about dosing cord blood, choosing better matches, and giving patients better support during the transplant procedure.

Cord blood promises for future medical procedures.

There are still study and research going on to treat more disease with cord blood. Trials are still underway to treat several diseases for which doctors may use cord blood as an option.

Easy access to your cord blood

Easy access to the child’s cord blood is possible if you pay to store your cord blood. The blood is stored for your own family, and no one else can access or use it. Even the private or public blood banks don’t use your stored cord blood for other families or donate to research. However, if you want to donate it to your loved ones, it will be available if a family needs it.

Cons Of Cord Blood Banking

Your child may need it.

Stem cell-rich cord blood is mainly used to treat a range of diseases, particularly if the child have a history of diseases such as leukemia, lymphoma, or sickle cell anemia. Although cord blood has shown significant results in successfully treating specific conditions, there isn’t strong evidence to support cord blood banking. If your family does choose cord blood banking, you may go for a public or private one as per your need.

Cord blood can’t be used in a few cases.

If your child is born with a genetic disorder like, muscular dystrophy or spina bifida, then the stem cells in the cord blood aren’t useful to others. But in a few cases, the cord blood donor is healthy; then, it is a good match for a sibling or another family member who has a genetic condition.

Cord Blood is discarded

A few banks with stored cord blood are mainly used to treat sick children or used for research. However, in private cord blood banks, throw away blood that a family no longer wants to store.

Public Vs. Private Cord Blood Banking

Private cord blood banks store cord blood for the family’s use and charge a yearly fee for storage. There is an initial processing fee for the first year of freezing. However, do the research of yours on your bank: Discover precisely how long it’s in this business, what kinds of standards it meets and accreditations it’s, how many cord blood they have released, and storage fee. Whether they’re fixed and search around to see if they have had any negative feedback, additionally, ask about the storage facility and criteria, and how a lot of those cells usually survive.

Anyone can use cord blood in public, and then it is anonymized, and a match is, so no one knows the donor’s identity. You can donate your baby’s cord blood for no cost to the Cord Blood Bank. Both private and public cord blood banks that process and store cord blood for allogeneic use.