With my first child, I thought long and hard about cord blood banking. I did SOME research and really wanted to do it, but never ended up doing it. With my girl, I did the same thing, but ended up not doing it.
Photo credit: madlyn from morguefile.com
Now that I am pregnant with my third blessing, I find myself, once again, thinking about this. Will I end up doing it or will I just pass on it again?? It sounds like a VERY good idea to do this, but I find myself thinking about money, and how I don’t have that much of it… Collecting the cord blood and storing it, is not cheap.
Afterall, there is no guarantee that an adequate stem cell match will be found for any given person (used for other sibling, parent). BUT your baby will always be a perfect match to his or her own stem cells. So, if you do consider or choose to store the cord blood and your baby does develop a blood, immune disease or a form of cancer (there is MANY more to mention, these are just the few I chose to mention in this post..), then quite possibly they can be treated using their cord blood. (For inherited genetic conditions your child MAY not be able to use their own stem cells). So, storing cord blood in general, is a really good thing.
Photo credit: mvictor from morguefile.com
The possibility of your baby needing to use his/her cord blood might be small, but in the back of your head you will always be saying “what if I did get that cord blood??” IF something happened, I know I would. That is why, this time, I am thinking extra hard about doing this… you never know!!!
I want to hear stories from you all. Have YOU ever had your child’s cord blood stored or know of someone who has? What is your thoughts on this??? Please chime in, I am so curious!
Disclosure
About Kim Delatorre
I haven’t and I don’t know anyone who has, but if I could afford it and I were going to have a baby now I would do it without a doubt.
Both of my son’s grandfathers have cancer, and you never know what could happen. I look at cord banking as a child’s first form of life insurance and wish I had known about it and it had been affordable 10 years ago.
I have a feeling this is going to become more standard in the future as the benefits become better known – I agree that the price is prohibitive for most people at the moment.
I wanted to bank cord blood with my older daughter but didn’t end up doing it because I delivered really early. With my younger daughter I anticipated a premature delivery and managed to get my kit a week before my daughter arrived at 36 weeks. I wasn’t thrilled about spending the money but the insurance policy it provides is really comforting.
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So you did it? How much was it?
Kim recently posted..Cord Blood Banking: Have You Done It? Would You Do It?
if i had the money i would have done it