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.