Cord Blood, Anyone? 6
You know, its kinda funny that I put those google ads on the side of this web site – I have earned a staggering $3.51 from them, but they have cost me far more than that.
The first day I had the ads up, they served me a link to the place we had the 3-D ultrasound done.
Then they started serving me links for things like storage of cord blood. I’m a child of the modern technical age, and after researching it, I decided to bank our kid’s cord blood with Viacord.
In my lifetime, I have seen huge improvements in technology and medicine… I can’t imagine what my kids will see, but I’m going to give them every advantage that is within my grasp – I mean how many people do you know that have blogs before they are born?
So those little ads have almost earned me a Starbuck’s White Mocha, and they have cost me a lot more than that… but who knows what they will end up saving. Do me a favor and click on one – my kids’ college funds will have a few more cents in it if you do.
I hate to say this, but…
Cord blood banking services are a terrible ripoff. They charge you an inordinate amount of money for something that you are very, very unlikely to ever use. It would be much better to donate your cord blood to the nonprofit cord blood bank, which they will talk to you about when you check in at the hospital. This makes cord blood available to children who do need it, but whose families can’t afford the exorbitant price of banking. We donated our cord blood to that.
If you choose to use the cord blood bank, you’ll pay a ridiculous setup and collection charge, and then storage charges every year. The chances of using this blood are about 1 in 2700. http://www.keepkidshealthy.com/pregnancy/cord_blood_banking.html
And how do you come up with the 1 in 2700, considering that in 20 years they will have found all kinds of other things it could be used for? I pay a lot every year for health insurance, car insurance, homeowners insurance, and other things, even though I think the chances I’ll need them are low… the “ridiculousness” of the charge is a matter of perspective – banking for triplets cost marginally more than banking one (about as much as I just spent on the camera I’m going to be taking their pictures with), and the yearly fee will be on par with what I pay for the electricity to run my home fileserver yearly.
Two words. Stem cells!
Most health problems that your babies are likely to encounter won’t be helped by cord blood. I think the only exception is a bone marrow transplant? I didn’t come up with the 1 in 2,700 number, I got that from several neutral sources online – do a Google for “cord blood banking,” and read sites OTHER than ViaCord’s. However, you can of course do this if you wish. Maybe in 20 years, if you’re going to pay for storage of the cells for 20 years, they will be good for something. Actually, since using them means that your children have some health problem, I hope you never use it! ;-)
My only concern is that, from everything I’ve read (and believe me – I did a TON of research on this when I was pregnant myself), I came away with the impression that the commercial cord blood bankers are scammers preying on parents’ fears, pure and simple; and making a big, fat profit off of it.
The National Cord Blood Registry, on the other hand, is non-profit.
If a company can provide me a service that I’m willing to pay for, and make a profit doing it, more power to them… You use profit vs. non-profit as if that inherently makes one good and one evil, which is a fallacy of logic in this argument.
You talk as if the storage fees are going to be some huge sum of money… I can win or lose that much in any given poker game on any given week of the year – if I can justify that expense weekly as entertainment, I think I can easily justify that expense yearly as a safety net.
I reject your 1 in 2700 number and choose to substitute it with my own… who knows? By the time my kids are teenagers, stem cells might be used as a cure for acne. When I was born, ultrasound was almost unheard of, and my Mom didn’t know if I was a boy or a girl until I was born. Today, I have a 3-d ultrasound up on a website that can be retrieved from just about anyplace on the planet. I have faith in the progress of technology.
The difference between ” for Profit ” and ” non profit ” is simple. In a for profit company, profits are divided amongst the shareholders. While in a Non profit, profits are distributed to employees and the head of the organization in the form of inflated salarys. It does not however mean that they operate without profits!