Honest opinions on cord blood banking?

I didn’t. I was told by my obstetrician and my mum, a 40 year NHS nurse, it’s a bit of a con and very expensive. It preys on our fears as first time parents and realistically if things like stem cells are needed in 20/30/40 years there’s no guarantee yours were stored correctly for that long. Only a few years ago a major UK hospital in London lost frozen embryos due to an IT issue. Freezing and banking stuff isn’t a guarantee on safety later in life. Just my opinion xx

I was thinking about doing this too so I’m here for the comments

We donated ours to the hospital. Paying for it to be stored or whatever is a scam.

I'm seriously considering it not just for baby but for our family, my husband ( who's30) was diagnosed with Leukemia the week after we found out we were pregnant, he will be having a stemcell transplant in two weeks time, unfortunately baby isn't due until may so we can't utilise the cord blood/stem cells, luckily we have got a match off the international register, if we hadn't got a match waiting until baby is born might have been our only option, I hope that neither my husband or my baby ever need stemcells again, however, if they do, I'd rather have them then not!

However, if I could donate my babies cord blood and placenta tissue, I would do that to save someone else, however, here in the UK donating of cord blood and placenta tissue can only be done in 5 hospitals in the UK.

Also if I was part of an ethnic minority or of mixed heritage I would 100% do this because the chances of finding a donor on a register is much lower.

I will be donating to the hospital. I’m a GP myself, I work for the public system in Spain and believe in the importance of having public banks for all of us. Not just the few who can pay for it

I donated mine to Anthony Nolan charity who help children with blood cancers etc.

I've signed up to a bank for when my daughter arrives in a few weeks. I've weighed everything up with my partner and although I hope we never have to use it I can only see it as a positive from the information I have read.

We wanted to but the cost was astronomical. We tried to donate it as the hospital i delivered at was a teaching and research hospital but they refused it. Still sad about it, the chord connecting me to my baby and having such value in medicine, it breaks my heart that it ended up in a bio waste bag

I did it for both my children. I believe stem cell research is very underrated at the moment but it has huge potential. I hope they will always be healthy and never need that, but it is better to have an extra option in my opinion.

Delayed cord clamping to get all that blood from birth was a priority for me.

You can do delayed cord clamping and still collect cord blood