Cord blood stem cells have been successfully used in transplant medicine. Cord blood has been used to treat many life-threatening diseases including leukemia, other cancers, blood disorders, metabolic disorders, and immune diseases.
Cord blood also is being used in regenerative medicine research, where stem cells are being evaluated for their ability to induce healing and regenerate cells to repair tissues. Clinical trials are evaluating a child's own cord blood stem cell infusions as experimental therapies to treat cerebral palsy, brain injury, juvenile diabetes, and acquired hearing loss.
Donating your baby’s umbilical cord blood to a public cord blood bank can give hope to someone in need. To protect the health of patients who may receive donated cord blood, only cord blood units that meet our strict quality standards will be stored and listed on the Be The Match Registry for patients in need of a transplant.
How to Donate Cord Blood
Get started by finding out whether the hospital where you plan to deliver your baby collects cord blood for public donation.
Look up your state on a searchable map of donation locations provided by the Parent's Guide to Cord Blood Foundation.
If your hospital is listed, contact the public cord blood bank that works with your hospital for more information. (A few hospitals allow mothers to enroll at the last minute when they arrive for labor, but most programs require advance enrollment.)
If your hospital doesn't collect cord blood on site, you can still donate by enrolling in a mail-in donation program. The Parent's Guide to Cord Blood provides a map and list of public banks that accept mail-in donations of cord blood.
Pick a bank from the list, contact the bank, and the bank will lead you through the process. The first step is for the mother to enroll and receive a collection kit. Her healthcare provider (who can be a midwife or doula) is then required to take training on the use of the kit. After the cord blood is collected, the kit is shipped to the bank.
Most public cord blood banks and hospitals need several weeks before your baby arrives to check your health history and eligibility to donate, so you should enroll before week 36 of pregnancy. You'll also want to discuss your desire to collect and donate your baby's cord blood with your healthcare provider, and make sure your provider knows how to collect cord blood.
Public cord blood banks also evaluate the history or risk of sexually transmitted infections and the circumstances and timing of ear, skin, and body piercings.
Collect your baby's umbilical cord blood
Your healthcare providers collect your baby's umbilical cord blood shortly after your delivery. The umbilical cord is clamped and cut. Then the blood is drained from the cord and placenta into a storage bag or vials, using gravity or a syringe.
Cord blood units donated to public cord banks are collected under strict quality standards to provide the best possible results for transplant patients. After the blood is collected, it's sent to the cord blood bank for testing and storage. (Cord blood units that are stored privately cannot later be transferred into the Be the Match Registry for public use.)
After that, A lab runs tests on the cord blood, If the cord blood doesn't meet transplant standards, it will be used for research or discarded. If the cord blood does meet transplant standards, it's stored in a cryogenic nitrogen freezer at a cord blood bank and made available to patients needing transplants.
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