Hi all,

These days, in Indonesia, you cannot escape from a private cord blood bank advertising.
They're everywhere.. I say this is a good thing, because cord blood is indeed useful and has been proven many times to cure a lot of diseases. (Mostly blood disorders such as leukemia n thalasemia).

The thing is these programs are costly.. For a storage service in Singapore I have to pay around 2200 SGD for the first year, and around 300SGD annually. I don't know about you, in Indonesia, that is expensive.

Well, if you want to know more about it, I made a post in my blog,
Sorry, I dont think I can post them all in here.. there are 4 posts or so, we can discuss it here or there. up to u.

I considered this with my last baby, but had him by home birth so it wasn't an option most hospitals do
It in the uk although
Not highly advertised

Hi Ken, thankyou for this interesting post. Unfortunately I have removed your link as Lisa mentioned on another post.

Oh its ok. I will post it summarized later... too tired to do that now.. thanks.

Ken - feel free to post your actual text if you want.

Its a tricky one as I am sure you aren't the usual advertiser who posts their link and runs off! So I feel a bit mean saying you cant link, but rules are rules...and we will see what happens down the line

Back to the subject - I had read about this before I had Izzy and was quite interested but the lack of info and places that did it in the UK made it a bit out of reach, also gathered it to be very expensive for the storage. Its a shame they don't do it on the NHS - imagine the savings of medicine for diseases that could be stopped by the kids cord blood?!

I did this for Tyler as I thought it was a fab idea and there a so many things they can treat with stem cells - i t wasn't that expensive either I think in total it was 1,500 EURO so about 1200 pounds and thats for 20 year storage

I really wish I had done something like this to be honest.

Im not sure if they offer it at our hospital. It really should be more widely available and more people should be made aware of it.

Okay, as requested. Here is the summary of what I posted. Hey its ok, its me who broke the rules anyway.

1. What is Cord Blood

It is the blood inside the placenta and the umbilical cord of your baby. It is highly valued because it contains stem cells, which is believed to be the future of our medicine due to the regenerative nature of the cells. It can multiply and differentiate into various types of cells. (ie.blood, nerves, muscles, etc)

2. Why store it?

I think u can conclude this urself, the stemcell is very valuable for curing 'serious' diseases. For now, its mostly used for blood disorders such as thalasemia or haemofilia, even leukemia. U know, the ones on the movies and televisions with so much drama over finding the compatible match? yup..

If you store your baby's cord blood, you may not have to go through that drama..because the baby's cb is very likely match everyone in your family. (higher chance for the mother's lines of family.. but not impossible for daddy to be compatible as well)

3. How to store it?

there are many cb banks in the world, even if u cant find one in your country, I believe you can try to contact a cb bank abroad. Like in Indonesia, I chose a singaporean cb bank.
Also there are two types of cb bank, a public bank and a private bank.
The public bank stores ur cb for free, but they can sell it to everyone who needs it (everyone who match for it).
The private bank stores ur cb for a price, but they cannot sell it to anyone, the ownership falls to ur baby. (it is his/her cb in the first place).

4. How much?

This varies...a lot. Try to make several comparison between each bank, make a table of pros n cons before deciding.

5. How long can u store a cb?

Theoretically, indefinitely.. because it is stored in a very low temperature, on paper its degradation is like 0.002% every year... that is caused by cosmic radiation.. but again, that is the theory. The history of cb banking is no more than 20 years as of now..so we still don't know.

6. So should I bank it?

Well if you have the money, I believe you shall contact a private bank, think of it as a kind of medical insurance..instead of money, you get a 'possible' cure for the disease.

If you don't hv money, and there is a public bank available, please donate your baby's cb to them, it might save someone's lives.


There goes. I hope it answers some question, and if u have another question just ask me.

mummajade wrote:

I did this for Tyler as I thought it was a fab idea and there a so many things they can treat with stem cells - i t wasn't that expensive either I think in total it was 1,500 EURO so about 1200 pounds and thats for 20 year storage

hmm, 1500 Euro is around 18 million rupiahs = 2769 sgd... and thats for 20 years of storage. wow thats cheap.

I believe as time goes by, the cost will drop, because what the cb banks do is collect ur blood, process it a bit, test it for several diseases, and then just put it in a special cryo-bag and store it.

I believe its the testing part that cost them, very expensive to test for HIV and Hep B+C ...

mmmm this is interesting, no one offered any info to me in either pg.

it should be more widely available

when I heard about it from here I did a post about in another forum and some people had heard about it but not many.

When I reasearched about it I thought it was a mazing and actually think it should be something that is done as a routine procedure because it can save lives. They recently did an operation on an elderly man in Israel using stem cells to create a new part for his heart or something similar like that. If the cord blood can help cure Tyler or even me and my OH of a seemably incurable disease then it's money well spent. If we never use it then I wouldn't look as if I'd wasted that money it's just a good insurance for his future.

1500 is a very good price I believe itg's quite a common thing in Cyprus they have their own collection unit in Paphos and they have their own storage facility here too which is probably why it is a fairly good price.

thanks for the info Ken, thats really interesting

i have had my sons done but i had it done for free as i took part in a nhs well women and baby survery x

@emma: well, consider urself and ur sons lucky.

@mummajade: yes, it is amazing. I don't know if the stemcells can survive the transitions between -180 to normal room temperature though.. it is such extreme temp change. but there is this interesting theory about stem cell cloning.. so if there is even one surviving stem cell, we can clone it and let it multiply again.
(its still a theory..but hey, everything we have at present starts from a theory, right? ^^)

@minimeg: thank u.

In our hospital they do cord blood collection for the Anthony Nolan Trust (I think it is) it does mean its not for our use but it's better than it going to waste!
Xx

Have you heard that they cured someone with AIDS using stemcell???

just google "aids cure stemcell" and u'll end up with this article from cnn on the front page..

Wow.

Proof that cord blood banking should be encouraged! of course, there are plenty of problems arising with this cure...but it still gives lots of hope.

Im just interested...how do they take it, and what are the risks??