Stem Cell Banking

With the growing use of umbilical cord stem cells in stem cell research and stem cell treatment, to combat an ever-growing number of diseases, more and more families are choosing stem cell banking as a form of biological insurance that can potentially benefit the entire family.

Stem cell banking is a safe, simple, and painless procedure. Once you decide to bank your baby’s cord blood (or, more specifically, the cord blood stem cells), which you will need to decide before the thirty-second week of pregnancy, you will need to choose a cord blood bank – one that is registered with the FDA and AABB accredited, such as LifeLine Cryogenics.

Once you have registered with a cord blood bank, the cord blood bank will send you a cord blood collection kit two to three months before your due date that contains everything that you and your doctor (or midwife) will need for the process, including instructions on how to collect the cord blood for stem cell banking.

After your baby is born, and the umbilical cord is cut, your obstetrician or midwife or a nurse will need to collect the blood from the remaining umbilical cord and placenta. Then a family member will need to send the cord blood to the cord blood bank.

At the cord blood bank, the stem cells will be carefully extracted from the cord blood and then placed into deep-freeze storage for future use, such as stem cell treatments for diseases such as leukemia, lymphoma, diabetes, and heart disease, should the need arise.