Choose a Public CB Bank ! | Bedomaich Chayi

Mazal tov ! We wish you an easy and successful birth and much joy from your children.

Once you decided to donate cord blood, you no doubt felt uncertain, asking yourself whether it would be better to donate the blood to a public cord blood bank or keep it in a private cord blood bank. The following review will give you extensive and objective information about the differences between public cord blood banks and the private commercial counterparts.

You may have come across glossy advertisements that try to convince you to save cord blood for yourself or your family at a private or commercial cord blood bank in exchange for a fee. The advertisements promise you "biological insurance" and a one-time opportunity to insure yourself and your family's future health. Is this really so ?

First, we must make it clear that the choice is yours. If you choose to preserve cord blood in a private bank, you cannot donate it to a public bank as well. Collectable cord blood is limited and cannot be shared between two banks.
 

Many women ask themselves the following questions:

If I donate cord blood to a public bank, can I use it if someone in my family needs it in the future?
If I keep the cord blood in a private bank, will it be of use to the born child? or my family when we need it?
What is the advantage of a public cord blood bank?

The answer to these questions is a little complicated. Let us try to make things clear.

Regarding the use of cord blood transplants, it is important to emphasize that at present, cord blood is used only for bone marrow transplants in order to treat malignant diseases of the circulatory system (the blood system) such as leukemia or lymphoma,  in bone marrow failure diseases, and in certain genetic diseases. Presently, there is no approved medical indication for other diseases, thus, doctors do not use cord blood at presnt or in the foreeable future for diabetes, Parkinson's, or heart disease etc. Although research is underway worldwide for attempts to treat these and other diseases with stem cell transplants. But these experiments are mostly still only followed in mice or rats and very limited information is at present for human use. It will anyway have to be approved before wide use by the regulatory authorities in each country, such as FDA in the U.S etc. There is no evidence that cord blood will be advantageous for this purpose. It may even prove impossible to use cord blood that is deep-frozen for a long time for such therapies.
 

More Information:

• The chance of a person needing a bone marrow transplant over the course of his whole lifetime is extremely low (ranging from 1 in 2,700 to as little as 1 in 200,000).
• At present, cord blood is not used for autologous transplants for most diseases treated by this tissue source (i.e., where a patient uses his own stem cells.*
• The chance of a tissue type match between siblings is only 1 in 4.
• Tissue type compatibility to parents is 50% (less than what is necessary for a transplant).
• Even when there is a match between siblings, it is clearly preferable to use stem cells from bone marrow, or peripheral blood, than to use cord blood. When necessary, stem cells can be taken from siblings of two years old.
• There is no proof that it will ever be possible to use cord blood for other diseases that do not require hematopoietic (bone marrow) transplants. In any case, it is unclear whether cord blood would have any advantage over stem cells collected from bone marrow or other places of the body.
In conclusion, the chance of using the cord blood for the newborn baby it came from or his family members is extremely remote. These are the scientific facts.

In practical terms, even under optimal collecting conditions such as those used by us, according to internationally accepted criteria, less than half the units collected are suitable for preservation. This is mainly due to low blood volume, too few cells, or contamination. In many cases, due to strict international standards, the mother's medical history may invalidate the use of her cord blood. It should be noted that public cord blood banks store all cord blood units anonymously according to tissue matching data. Any matching patient can get the cord blood including the newborn donor or his family members. Donating cord blood to public banks gives instant hope to the many patients who need a bone marrow transplant each year.
 

Why a public cord blood bank ? The more public cord blood banks there are, the higher are the chances that every patient will have of finding a matching cord blood donation. When a donor family has a member who is in immediate need of a bone marrow transplant or suffering from a disease that may soon need a transplant, the donated cord blood can be specially kept for him at no cost as a "designated donation." For more information, please contact us.

Medical organizations recommend donating cord blood to public cord blood banks.

Professional organizations do not recommend keeping cord blood in private banks.

* Regarding most diseases currently treated by bone marrow transplantation, there is a chance that the patient's own cord blood may carry the seeds of his disease and cause a relapse. The outbreak of the disease in the first place indicates there must be some defect in the system. Therefore, doctors generally do not perform transplant using a patient's own cells, including the cord blood of the baby if in need. In addition, there is generally a clear preference to transplant cells from an unrelated donor as the new cells induce an immunological effect that leads to the detection of cancer cells as foreign agents and to their destruction. This is called the GVL (graft versus leukemia) effect.

For additional information, read what the doctors say about the subject.