Did you know cord blood can save lives?

Yes and it's great that you are helping spread the word to make more people aware. Bush and his passing of the stem cell bill would have helped cord blood research but in the meantime, more and more doctors are making sure that their patients know about ALL the options for cord blood storage. Whether it's banking it, donating it, banking it for free or using it for a family member.

Bush & the Republican flunkies don't want people to know---it would create too many issues for their teensy right-wing brains to deal with. BTW---it's UMbilical. Just so you fight for the right thing.

This is very true and I have taken care of children who's lives have been saved by bone marrow transplants from donated cord blood. If you have the option, you should donate the cord blood when you give birth, it is something small you can do that can make a huge difference for someone else. In some places you can also store the cord blood in case you or your baby needs it later, but this is expensive and usually not necessary.

uuuhhh huh. If that was done by the government, then it would be ok for it to be a mandatory question. But since the cord blood stuff is done by private companies, that would amount to advertising and spamming.

Several thousand children and adults have been treated with cord blood transplants around the world since the early 1990s. The success rate in young children and there have been steady advances in the technology that are improving outcomes in larger children and adults. There are two types of cord blood banks, public and private. The public banks are government funded and in the US are located in NY, Los Angeles, Durham NC and a few other places in the US as well as in many cities around the world. Currently there are about 250,000 cord bloods stored in the public banks around the world. These can be used by anyone who needs a transplant and doesnt have a brother or sister donor. Private banks, in contrast, charge parents a fee to store the cord blood and it is only to be used by the family paying the fee. The chances that someone would need their own cord blood later in life are currently estimated at less than 1/10,000 but private banking is recommended if there is a known blood disease that runs in the family. An excellent discussion of these issues can be found at http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/extract/351/22/2255.

Yes I did know that blood cord saves lives. There was nothing more I wanted when I delivered my daughter than to be able to save her blood cord but unfortunately my income is so low I could not afford it. I really wish there could have been some way I could have afforded it (unless there was and I didn't know) because I am a cancer survivor and I would never want my daughter to go through anything like that in her life. I find it very sad that insurance companies can't cover the expense. I know it would be very expensive to do so for every person but I think they would save a lot of money in the long run.