I'm against storing cord blood cells.

If anyone's interested to know, I'll gladly tell you why.

Why I decided not to store my baby's cord blood :

1) The probability of usage is low. Out of 10,000 samples stored by one of the company, only 6 were even transplanted. 3 for the baby's use, 3 for baby's sibling (usually the younger siblings were conceived to save the elder sibling so it can be discarded from the statistics). Most of the company's transplants are adult stem cells (for athletes) and animal stem cells (for horses). To put this in perspective, your baby has a higher chance of getting cleft lip/palate (1 in 700) or down syndrome (1 in 800).

2) Number of stem cells harvested highly varies. Sometimes can get a lot, sometimes can get little - but the company wont tell you this. If you get a lot, good - prolly can be enough till the baby is up to certain weight. If not, then they wont tell you (and you'll still keep on paying maintenance fee - they'll pray hard you wont need the cells. But if you ever need them - too bad, they hv insurance that will cover their butt).

3) The companies arent making enough money from the maintenance fee to cover their costs. One of the biggest company is a public company so you can vet through the financial details in their website. They've been making loses for a couple of years now - so by the time if you ever need the stem cells, hope that the company is still open.

4) The turnover rate of their staff is very high. For labs that open 24 hours a day, most work on 12 hours shift - and when working condition is not optimal, most of staff leave after few months on the job. So the lab is staffed by mostly fresh grads. And they're not being paid really well (refer item 3) so they come and they go. Are you putting your trust on these fresh employes?

5) 'Automated AXP Processing' is purely marketing. You'll get it when the machines are working. If the machines break or under maintenance, the cells will be manually processed. But you wont get back the difference in your money.

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I'll just stop there for now.

Hey but if you have the money, then by all means.

We can agree to disagree.

One of my best friend works in the lab

I get my information from the insiders, you get your information from the sales people.

1) Btw stem cells dont cure 'any disease'.

2) It's limited to certain bodyweight., depending on how many cells so adults most likely wont be able to use them.

3) As for the 'take back stemcells and park it elsewhere', they need to be kept at -190degrees. The poster above already mentioned that it cant be taken out or exposed to air.

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Anyway, since you guys are so determined to prove me wrong, I'm just gonna stop at item (5) as above. My goal was not to make you not store your baby's cord blood. My goal was to make sure that you get your information not just from the company's sales people.

After all it's your money.

What made you think that I didnt get any information from their sales people?

Because you mentioned :


In that context, you're implying that it can cure any disease ever known to man. Hence why I put it in ' ' .

Folks, I asked 3 O&G specialists, 4 sales people (from 3 diff companies), 3 lab staff (from 2 diff companies) and did my own readings. FYI my decision was made on ethical basis, not a medical one.

the current chance statistics on using own cell from one of the company is is 0.03%

Not discourage, inform

I prefer people make their own informed decisions instead of fear marketing.

Can you define 'better'?

Any particular reason why you're thinking of SC storage? Do you have familial history of blood disorders like thalassemia or leukemia?

Some of the info is outdated : e.g said lab no longer has 24 shifts.. they're on 'on-call' system now.

Btw if you have history of blood disorders in your family, then you should store the samples.

This post has been edited by Syd G: Sep 1 2012, 11:30 AM

If you want to donate your baby's cord blood for the benefit of others, you need to deliver at GH.. as for they helping you store cord blood, I'm not sure whether they do it for all mothers or just take random samples. PPUM doesnt have it.

Very rare to get blood disorders if you dont have any familial history. But one thing that people have to realize is.. even if you have the cord blood stored and your baby get a disease, the blood cant be reused back because it's genetically defective...still need to get donation gua.

It can be used for baby only for cerebral palsy (for now)... and that treatment is experimentational, they often do it in Thailand...

And if the gene is defective (e.g baby has thalassemia or leukimia), even the siblings cant benefit from it.. how lah