What is cord blood banking?

What is cord blood?

Cord blood is the blood in your baby's umbilical cord and placenta. Cord blood contains potentially lifesaving cells called stem cells. (The stem cells in cord blood are different from embryonic stem cells.) Stem cells can develop into mature blood cells, including red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. These stem cells are currently used to treat many diseases.

Cord blood stem cells are also the subject of animal studies and of FDA-regulated clinical trials exploring their suitability for helping those with autism, brain injury, and many other conditions.

What is cord blood banking?

Cord blood banking involves collecting the blood left in your newborn's umbilical cord and placenta following birth and storing it for future medical use.

For cord blood storage, you have two options:

• You can donate your baby's cord blood to a public cord blood bank for anyone who needs it.
• You can pay to store your baby's cord blood in a private cord blood bank for your family's use.

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Step-by-step guide to cord blood collectionOpens a new window

 

How is cord blood collected?

Cord blood is collected right after birth, and is viable for future uses whether the birth was medicated or not, and whether you delivered vaginally or by C-section.

The collection process is painless and safe for you and your baby.

Here's how it's done:

Clamping and cutting the cord

After you've delivered your baby, the umbilical cord is clamped and then cut in the usual way – either by your partner or your medical provider.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommends a delay of 30 to 60 seconds between delivery and cord clamping for healthy, full-term babies; the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends one to three minutes; and many midwives and physicians may recommend a delay of two to five minutes, especially for premature babies. Delayed cord clamping allows extra blood to flow from the placenta to the baby and can have various benefits, including helping prevent anemia.

If you're planning to delay cord clamping, talk to your healthcare provider ahead of time about your options. Note that while delayed cord clamping may be beneficial for newborns, it will affect the volume of blood and the quantity of stem cells collected for donating and storing.

Read about the benefits of delayed cord clamping.

Extracting the cord blood

After the cord is cut, your medical provider wipes it with disinfectant and inserts a needle into the umbilical vein on the part of the cord that's still attached to the placenta. The needle doesn't go anywhere near your baby.

The blood drains into a collection bag. Typically, 1 to 5 ounces are collected. The entire process takes less than 10 minutes.

Some family cord blood banks will accept a segment of the umbilical cord and possibly the placenta, too, in addition to the cord blood – umbilical cord tissue and placental tissue contain stem cells that are different from cord blood stem cells, and researchers are studying their possible use.

Storing the cord blood

The collected cord blood is carefully packed and shipped to your cord blood bank, where it's tested to confirm that it meets medical quality standards for safe use. Following approval, the blood is processed and cryopreserved (preserved by freezing at a very cold temperature that stops cellular activity) for long-term storage.

Many parents contemplating this procedure wonder whether the stem cells in their baby's cord blood will still be viable if the need arises in their family or for someone applying to a public cord blood bank a long time down the road. Scientists say that cryogenically preserved cells have no expiration date, and frozen cord blood should be viable for decades.

Will collecting my baby's cord blood interfere with delivery?

No. Collecting your baby's cord blood won't interfere in any way with your labor or delivery. The procedure takes place after the baby has been delivered and the umbilical cord has been clamped and cut, and it's so quick and painless that often parents – caught up in holding and bonding with their new baby – are unaware it has even happened.

As mentioned above, collecting cord blood can be incorporated into most birth plans, but again, if you choose this option, be sure to discuss your plans with your doctor or midwife in advance and when you review your plan.

Who can collect

The person collecting the cord blood may be an obstetrician, a nurse, or a midwife – anyone who is experienced at doing a sterile blood draw. The training required to collect blood from the umbilical cord is the same skill used by the technicians (phlebotomists) who draw your blood for testing. You'll definitely get a better cord blood collection with a more expert technician, so don’t hesitate to ask about the level of experience of the person assigned to the task in your case.

Home births

If you're having a home birth, you won't be eligible to donate the cord blood to public banks; to donate, you must give birth in an accredited hospital. This rule was set by public cord blood banks, which test, process, and store donations.

You can, however, have your baby's cord blood collected at a home birth if you have arranged for private storage in a family bank. If you are planning to bank cord blood with a private company, you can bring that company's collection kit with you to wherever the birth is set to take place. This option makes it feasible to collect cord blood from most home births for private storage. However, the draw will still need to be done by a nurse, or a midwife – anyone who is experienced at doing a sterile blood draw

What are the benefits of cord blood banking? 

Cord blood is a rich source of blood stem cells. These stem cells are the building blocks of the circulatory and immune systems. They have the ability to develop into other types of cells, which in various ways help the body repair tissues, organs, and blood vessels and can be used to treat a host of diseases.

Unlike the stem cells in bone marrow or peripheral blood, stem cells in cord blood are immature, and thus haven't fully learned yet how to attack foreign cells. It's easier to match transplant patients with cord blood rather than other sources of stem cells because the patient's body is less likely to reject the cord blood stem cells.

This makes cord blood an even more hopeful resource for ethnic minorities, for whom it is harder to find stem cell matches in the registry of adult bone marrow donors. In 2020, 31 percent of umbilical cord blood transplants were for patients of color.

More and more adults are receiving cord blood transplants, too, sometimes involving two cord blood donations if a single one doesn't contain enough cells.

What is cord blood used for?

Each year, about 3,000 cord blood stem cell transplants are performed worldwide.

Cord blood stem cells have been used successfully to treat more than 80 different diseases, including:

• Some cancers, such as leukemia, Hodgkin's disease, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma
• Blood disorders, such as aplastic anemia, thalassemia, and sickle cell anemia
• Genetic disorders
• Neurologic disorders, such as cerebral palsy
• Immune deficiencies, including, in rare instances, HIV
• Rare metabolic disorders that would otherwise be fatal for infants, such as Krabbe disease,
• Sanfilippo syndrome, and irritable bowel disease

In addition, surgeons who operate on children born with congenital heart defects often use the child's cord blood in the heart-lung bypass machine because it's more compatible than donated blood and promotes healing.

Studies are underway around the world exploring new ways of using cord blood, and have added knowledge for promising treatments of other serious health conditions and disorders, including cerebral palsy, HIV, and autism.

Treatments for adults

Much of the promising stem cell research in adults that uses cells from bone marrow may one day use stem cells from cord blood. Current studies registered with the U.S. federal database are treating people with conditions as varied as diabetes, spinal cord injuries, heart failure, stroke, and neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis. In addition, years of research to "expand" cord blood units so that they can be used to provide transplants to adults are finally coming to fruition.