Can I do cord blood banking from 1 with twins?

[piggy2]

Hi everyone!!  I have been checking in but not posting in a while.  This pg thing keeps me busy and tired.  Wanted to know if others are doing cord blood banking and why they decided to do it.  If I am having twins, couldn't I just do it with one, and it could be used for both of them, the siblings or even us, the parents if needed.  It is expensive to begin with, but with twins it is twice the price!!

[adgal]

Actually there is a very good chance cord blood from your second child would be able to be used on your first.  I am not certain what the percentages are for siblings, but there is a 50% chance of a match for parents, and 25% for grandparents.  A second child with the same parents would probably be a very high match.  We sort of looked at this as almost a life insurance policy for our son.  It's one of those things I hope and pray he never needs to use, but if he ever should I am glad we did it.  

[mum2beagain]

This is an interesting topic to me. I have read a lot lately about the successful outcomes when kids with brain injuries have had cord blood transfused; brain cells actually re generating after the transfusion and improved function in patients. Our oldest child suffered brain injury at birth and now has several problems. Should we have another child we would look into banking the blood and possibly transfusion into our older child if it is possible.

[piggy2]

Thank you for all of your input, I need to make a decision soon.  I am going to look into puglic banking before investing my $$$!

[adgal]

We did it, and with a private bank.  It's true there is no guarantee the bank won't go out of business or anything, but it wasn't too pricey, so it seemed worth the risk.  Also, we did as much homework as we could and the bank we chose is one of the first in Canada, so been around awhile, and has a good reputation.  Our initial cost was around $1000 and is now $125.00/year.  It just seemed like a good investment to us.  

[mjmom69]

I'm not pg, yet, but I've been thinking about this. I heard somewhere that if everybody donated the cord blood, then there would always be a supply for someone who may need it, and in turn, if you needed it. I probably couldn't afford the expense but I think I'll at least donate it if I do get lucky soon.

[Ecologic]

We had been thinking about it and discussed that with our high risk ob-gyn recently. She said it's useful if a close relative (sibling, parent, child) has had leukemia or lymphoma, otherwise it's probably a waste of money. And that you're really looking at possibly using this cord when your child is in his 20's, rarely before.

That's said the public cord-blood banking is absolutely free and it's better than simply discarding the cord. Of course you don't know for sue that your baby's cord will be available for sure, but it's better than nothing. If using the public bank, you probably will want to mention that before the birth so doctors are ready to retrieve it.

[AnnieBrooke]

If you are having identical twins you could do it with just one.  

I felt like there was no guarantee, after all that expense, that the cord blood lab would even be in existence by the time my son might theoretically need it.  It's not government-guaranteed or anything, like the FDIC does for banks.  It's been a while since I looked into it, but as I recall there were no or few guarantees that the samples would be properly stored and still usable many years later, and a lot of other questions.  Also, I think there is some kind of public cord-blood banking happening, again, can't really remember.  But at the time I decided that (if anyone at the hospital asked), I would donate to that.