Cord blood banking enables parents to save powerful cells from the umbilical cord blood of their child immediately after birth. Families preserve these cells so that they are available for use in existing medical treatments.

With Lifebank, you can bank more cells—and more life-saving opportunities—by collecting from three rich sources of the cells: placental blood, cord blood, and placental tissue. Placental banking preserves potent cells from the blood of the placenta, and provides a greater number of cells for your family. In the near future, having more cells available may prove beneficial for new treatments currently being researched. Placental banking gives you and your family the opportunity to take advantage of today’s medical treatments, should you need them, and tomorrow’s emerging medical advancements as they become reality.

When you bank with Lifebank, we give you the option to add placental tissue banking. Placental tissue contains special cells that may one day be useful for various therapies.

There’s a lot of recent discussion about delayed cord clamping vs. cord blood banking. The concern is that a delay in clamping the umbilical cord leaves less blood in the cord and placenta, resulting in fewer cells in your collection.

The point of delayed cord clamping is to allow some of the blood from the umbilical cord to flow into the newborn baby. This is most likely to happen within the first 30 to 60 seconds after birth.¹ Research has found that delaying cord clamping by 20 seconds or more leads to a significant decrease (several hundred million cells fewer) in the recovered cell count.² However, even though there is less cord blood, and therefore fewer cells with delayed cord clamping, you can still collect a meaningful, albeit smaller, number of cells.

If you decide on delayed cord clamping with advice from your doctor, then there’s even more reason to consider placental blood banking in addition to your cord blood collection. Banking placental blood increases the total number of cells collected. Lifebank offers expectant parents the opportunity to collect cells from the placenta in additional to cord blood.

Ultimately, the decision of whether or not to delay cord clamping should be made by the parents after discussing all the possible pros and cons with their doctor.

Every 2 minutes a child is diagnosed with cancer.³ Many families have no prior history of the disease, which may require treatment with a transplant. In addition, cells found within the cord blood and placenta are actively being studied in clinical trials, so your family could potentially benefit from future treatments using banked cells.

Public cord blood banking is free. The cost of cord blood banking with a private bank varies from company to company.

Lifebank has a range of pricing options across our banking services to meet your family’s individual needs. The cost of cord blood banking with Lifebank starts at $1,495 for enrollment, collection and processing, and the first year of storage. Thereafter, storage fees start at $125 a year (when prepaid for 25 years). Adding placental blood, placental tissue, or cord blood tissue to your cord blood collection will be reflected in the associated costs.

Ways to help manage the cost

To help your family manage the cost of cord blood banking and our other banking services, Lifebank offers several cost-saving programs, including:

• Refer a Friend and Save: When you a refer a friend to Lifebank and they enroll, you’ll receive two years of free storage.
• Bank Again at a Discount: Call for a discount on enrollment when you bank with us a second (or third!) time.

When expectant parents are considering the pros and cons of cord blood banking, the cost of private banking is often a source of concern. With enrollment, collection, processing, and storage fees, it’s understandable to wonder, “Is cord blood banking worth it?”—especially at a time when the regular costs of having and taking care of a new baby are looming.

Cord blood banking can be thought of as “biological insurance” for your child and your family’s future health. Paying $123 to $150 a year for cord blood banking with Lifebank (in addition to a collection fee) is a lot less than the cost of other insurance policies we don’t hesitate to buy, such as life, health, property, or car insurance.

Consider your family history

The case for cord blood banking becomes even stronger if there’s already a family history of one of the diseases currently treatable with cord blood, including leukemia, lymphomas, sickle cell anemia, and immune deficiency diseases, among others. With a family history of one of these diseases, your family’s chances of needing a transplant at some point in the future are higher than the general population’s.

Planning for more than one child?

You may find the idea of cord blood banking particularly reassuring if you have or plan to have more than one child. Cells found within your baby’s cord blood can be used for siblings and other family members. These cells have a 25% chance of being a perfect genetic match and a 50% chance of being a partial genetic match for your baby’s brother or sister. So you’re not just banking for your baby’s benefit, but truly for your whole family.

Plan for the future

Like other insurance, cord blood banking provides security, in this case against a number of life-threatening diseases – and that can be considered priceless. By adding placental blood, placental tissue, and cord tissue to your cord blood collection, you’re increasing the odds of your family being able to take advantage of future medical advancements as they become available too.

Once a family makes a donation, assuming it meets collection standards, the cells become available for any potential matching patient or for research. There’s no way to guarantee access to your child’s cells (a perfect genetic match) at a later date.

The sooner, the better! As soon as you enroll to take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, we will mail you your collection kit so you have it well in advance of your baby’s birth.

Absolutely! The entire process is performed by your own healthcare provider, is non-invasive, and only takes about 5 minutes. Once your baby is born and the umbilical cord has been cut, your healthcare provider will collect blood from the portion of the cord still attached to the placenta. If you also decide to do placental banking the entire placenta will be collected separately and placed into a special bag. The collection kit will then be transported by medical courier to the Lifebank laboratories for processing and preservation.