Storing Cord Blood - Your experiences

[lollybaby]

Hi there,

DP and I are working through the decision about whether to store our baby's cord blood or not. If any of you are willing to share your experiences it would be helpful for us. Forgive me as I know that is very personal for people - please only share what you are comfortable with - I will explain our situation first.

DP has a rare renal condition and is likely to need a kidney transplant - as to when, we aren't sure, but it is highly likely that it will be necessary. It is unlikely that cord blood and stem cells from our baby will be of use to him - the technology to grow organs for transplant is so far off - but if our child develops the same condition and requires a transplant in the future - it may be helpful to him / her when older (the condition is not genetically inherited, but our children will be at a higher risk than the general population).

There are so many unknowns about the future of what this technology may be able to do - and the costs to store blood privately are very high, particularly if you never need to use the blood. I know its like an insurance policy - you do it 'just in case.'

I'm interested if anyone is willing to share their experiences about why / why not they chose to store blood or not, and if it was a general reason, or did you have specific health risks in the family like we do? And did you store publicly or privately?

The other tough part for me, is we will probably have to clamp the cord early in order to collect enough blood volume, and this really conflicts with my desire to allow our baby to very rightfully receive all his / her own blood from the cord and the placenta, and only clamp once the cord has stopped pulsating.

If poeple would prefer to PM me, please do so.
Lolly x