We banked the cord blood but hope we never need to use it.

The reasons we decided to buy: 1. Just in case. We don't want to regret if we are really in need of the cord blood in the future; 2. With the rapid development in the scientific world, maybe the cord blood can cure more diseases. If our baby doesn't use it, maybe it will help other family members even other people.

But it is definitely not a necessity. It's simply a personal choice.

Debbi wrote: Thanks for the info on cord blood donation Grace.  I had completely forgotten about it.

We did not  bank our baby's cord blood - it is pricey, and we had heard that it is very unlikely that your baby would be able to use their own cord blood, but that a sibling's cord blood would be more useful. So, we delayed our decision, thinking that if something went wrong and we needed cord blood, we'd just have another baby ;)

In terms of donation to a public cord bank, I think this is a fantastic thing to do - it does not cost you anything, yet could be useful for someone else. You have nothing to lose.

We heard about the  Victoria Angel registry on Global TV's 16x9 show. We actually contacted them but they denied our application for donation, as we are from South Africa and anyone that has lived on the African continent is immediately not eligible :(

The Victoria Angel Registry of Hope - details at http://www.cellsforlife.com/victoriaangel/

 Hospitals serviced by our bedside pickup service include the following hospitals:  Ajax Pickering, Brantford General, Cambridge Memorial, Credit Valley, Georgetown, Grand River, Guelph General, Humber River (Church & Finch), Joseph Brant Burlington, Markham Stouffville, McMaster, Milton District, Mt. Sinai Toronto, North York General, Oakville Trafalgar, Scarborough Centenary/ General/ Grace, Southlake, St. Joseph’s Hamilton, St. Joseph’s Toronto, St. Michael’s Toronto, Toronto East General, Trillium Health Centre (Mississauga), William Osler (Brampton Civic & Etobicoke), Women’s College, York Central.

Mandy wrote: Hello Everyone.
I am currently looking into the various cord blood companies:
Cells for LIfe
Create
Insception
Progenics.

I would totally appreciate any advice you can give me with regards to any of these companies, both good or bad.

Many thanks in advance,

Mandz

Debbi wrote:

Hi Debbi. I have never heard about not being eligible if you are from SA. I am as well but have been in Canada since 1977. Would that still not be considered eligible? What company did you use? If you prefer not to say publicly, can you pls email me privately at mandz21@yahoo.com.

I will be banking my baby's cord blood even though it is expensive. Great additional life insurance. Cheers,
M

Hello fellow South African, though I guess you don't consider yourself South African anymore since you obviously came to Canada at a very young age :)

I'm not sure of the exact details for eligibility to donate to the public registry. This was for the Victoria Angel Registry of Hope (the only public one in Ontario, I believe - and it is run by Cells For Life). Basically I submitted the forms and I was shocked when they called me to say "Sorry, we cannot accept your baby's cord blood as donation because you have lived in Africa."

If you look through the forms, they have a list of specific questions you have to answer. I suspect those are all the 'no go' criteria (i.e. high risk, for whatever reasons they have decided on). The questions are quite interesting - you can review them on the form at http://www.cellsforlife.com/victoriaangel/registerform.pdf

My niece had leukemia a few years back and when I told my sister-in-law about this, she said, gee at the time that her daughter was diagnosed, if they had been given the option to use publicly donated cord blood from an anonymous donor from SA, they would have gladly taken it. I guess the "risk" is all in the eye of the beholder...