Cord blood bank

A cord blood bank is a place that stores umbilical cord blood for future use. Both private and public cord blood banks have developed since the mid to late 1990s in response to the success of cord blood transplants in treating diseases of the blood and immune systems, such as Fanconi's anemia and leukemia. Cord blood, once seen as waste to be discarded after a birth, is now viewed as a precious resource. Since the first successful cord blood transplant was performed on a child with Fanconi's anemia in 1988, over 3,500 patients have been treated with this procedure, including 14 who used their own blood cells. In 2004, 600 of those transplants took place in the United States. Following the 1988 transplant, the National Institute of Health awarded a Grant to cord blood pioneer, Dr. Pablo Rubinstein, to begin the first National Cord Blood banking Program (NYCP) at the New York Blood Center, for public placental blood storage and research.

Cord blood contains hematopoietic stem cells, progenitor cells that can form red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. Cord blood stem cells are not embryonic stem cells, a pluripotent stem cell, which theoretically can develop into any type of human cell. The range of therapies using cord blood cells is currently limited to treating diseases of the blood and immune systems.

Public banks accept donations to be used for anyone in need. However, there are very strict regulations that public banks need to follow in order to enable the donated units to be added to a registry. Generally an expectant mother interested in donation should contact the bank before the 34th week of pregnancy. The National Marrow Donor Program has a list of public cord blood banks on their website. Once the blood is donated, it loses all identifying information after a short period of initial testing, so that families will not be able to retrieve their blood later.

Private banking allows families to preserve their blood for their own use. For-profit private banks charge a fee of around $2000 to preserve a newborn's cord blood for possible use by the family later.

Public cord blood banking is strongly supported by the medical community, but private cord blood banking is generally not recommended unless there is a family history of specific genetic diseases.[citation needed] Public and private banks offer free programs to store the cord blood of babies whose family members have a condition which can be treated with the blood cells.