planning on keeping umbilical cord blood?

[shell6]

Hi,
I dont live in the UK and was wondering what the norm is for keeping umbilical cord blood in the UK.

It will cost us nearly 2,000 US dollars to store the blood for 15 years - so it is a huge expense. I dont know if this 2,000 dollars of 'life' insurance might be better spent elsewhere.

Does it cost more or less where you live?
Are you planning on storing the blood?
If you have considered it and decided against it, I would like to know your reasons.

 

[Ragna]

Dont mean to be totally thick here...But why would you want to save the blood in the first place????

Had Five babies and never heard of this before!!!

Ragna xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

[littlebump]

Apparently it's a big thing in America - the stem cells found in the blood of the umbilical cord can be used to treat a number of illnesses the child may suffer later in life - e.g. leukemia, immune deficiency, sickle cell anemia, aplastic anemia, thalassemia, Hodgkin's disease and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. It has certain advantages over bone marrow stem cells.

All very interesting, but I don't know if it's even offered to lesser mortals such as myself in the UK....!

 

[littlebump]

Just found this website which has quite a lot of info: -

http://www.futurehealth.co.uk/FAQs_Stem ... anking.asp

 

[sasha715]

i cant beleive you have to pay so much money for it! i mean when look at the rough birthplan in ur notes and it says do you want to keep the ambilical cord blood? where does it say at a high price!? if it proven to work and the list of things that it can cure keeps growing then it should either be part of our NHS or part of people mediacl insurance in america. we pay tax an national insurance for treatment nobdy said anything about extra supliments!!

 

[littlebump]

Hi Sasha

I know what you mean - it does make it kind of inaccessible to a most people.

I love your scan picture by the way - how many weeks were you when you had it?

LB

 

[sasha715]

i was 21 weeks when had that done. u had urs done yet?

 

[littlebump]

I had one at 12 weeks which was lovely. Having my second scan on 28th June and can't wait! I'll be 22 and a half weeks by then so should be able to see a lot more, but we're still undecided as to whether to find out the sex or not. Did you find out?