Cord Blood Donation

When Gabby was born we did cord blood donation. There are lots of wonderful things that can be done with cord blood. There's a lot of information at Save the Cord Foundation. There are many diseases that can be treated and there is a lot of stem cell research going on, without the obvious ethical and moral issues that come with embrionic stem cell research. The donation itself is free, but... Our obstentric practice charged us $75 for the couple of minutes it took to drain the blood from the umbilical cord and fill out the short form.

We chose donation for a multitude of reasons. We knew that we couldn't afford to bank privately, so that was obviously not a choice for us. I would hope that we wouldn't have chosen that anyway. The likelihood that our family would ever need the cord blood is quite low. The only people who have had cancer in our families have been our grandfathers (all four), when they were well advanced in years, not children. I really hoped that our donation would be able to benefit someone somewhere, giving them a wonderful life and many more years of joy, rather than sitting in a freezer somewhere out of a paranoid fear. Admittedly, there are many families that have very good reason to retain cord blood--they are at high risk to need it, and I begrudge no one, but I believe that the LORD will provide for our family in the way He sees fit if tragedy were to strike us. It is a very personal decision, but that was ours.

Unfortunately, when I called the billings office this time they have raised the rate to $125! She also gave me false information, saying that the company we donated to would reimburse us. I knew this wasn't the case two years ago, so I called the donation center and was told that they would not. How could they pay that kind of fee for every donation? I don't begrudge them at all. But why should a family who lives on a rather tight budget, not be allowed to give this gift of saving someones life? I understand that there are a great number of costs in delivering babies, but I was there last time and I saw the procedure. It took no extra time in the scheme of things because they have to wait until the placenta is delivered anyway. It is not a risk to me or the baby, so there isn't a chance of being sued for the procedure. I will ask if there is a way that they will "donate" their time, but the problem becomes, who will be delivering this baby? It is quite frustrating.