Cord blood donation or banking?

Has anyone here donated or banked their cord blood? I've been looking at information online and am interested. My hospital also participates in cord blood donation. I was wondering if anyone here had done it, or needed cord blood and any experiences they had with the process.

I support donation. I am a leukemia patient who needed a bone marrow transplant, but had no matching donors in the registry. The same type of cells that make the bone marrow transplant work are also in the cord blood. My transplant used donated cord blood.

The marrow program keeps the cord blood banks and that information can be found at the National Marrow Donor's Program at http://www.marrow.org . That is for the US and Canada. If you are in a different country, you can search your country's marrow program or call the US program to get info for your own country.

Its wise to bank if you have a family history of childhood leukemia or a couple of other things, but it is massivly expensive. Anyone who needs it has access to the public banks, including you. However, if you need cord blood from the public bank a couple years later, chances are the unit you donated wont be there anymore.

Didn't do it. Heard from too many people (inc. my best friend, a PhD biologist in stem cells) that the technology is changing too fast for it to be reliable. For instance, they don't yet know whether "frozen" cells will be really very "fresh" in 15 years if needed. Also, the possibilities for adult stem cells being "washed" and reused, while not perfect yet, are very promising. Unless you have serious genetic history that merits concerns, or you have money to burn, you might want to skip it. I think it is better off in a college fund.

I ALWAYS donate the cord blood. Some family out there needs it to save their child, and i just put myself in their shoes. what if my child was in danger and needed the cord blood; i would want someone to donate it to help save my child's life. You should donate it to help save a baby's life (:

The cord blood belongs to your baby and your baby should not be denied it. Don't let them cut the cord until it has stopped pulsing so you know your baby has got all the blood he or she is meant to get.