Considering Cord Blood Preservation for Your Baby

• Does their service include pick-up by a private medical courier and do they employ tracking technology to ensure timely delivery?

Look for a company that uses a private medical courier to ensure the quickest, highest quality pick-up and delivery of your baby's cord blood.

The company should manage all courier and transportation logistics, including accurate tracking of sample handling, expedient timing of the transport of the cord blood unit to the laboratory within 24 hours of the baby's birth to ensure maximum viability, and accurate regulation of the pressure and proper temperature at which the sample is maintained during transport.

The three areas proven to increase and maintain cell viability are timing, pressure, and temperature regulation, all of which factors are controlled by the use of a private medical courier, ensuring that your child's cord blood gets to the lab quickly and safely while avoiding the potentially damaging temperature swings and pressure changes that happen with standard package carriers. This maximizes the number of cells that can be used in a transplant should you ever need them.

• How does the company collect your child's cord blood?

Be sure that the company you are looking at provides a sterile collection protocol to allow for collections to be performed during C-sections and emergency births.

• Does the company have a Medical Scientific Advisory Board (MSAB) made up of notable authorities in the field of cord blood stem cell preservation and transplantation?

The company you are considering should have a Medical Scientific Advisory Board (MSAB) made up of thought-leaders in the field of stem cell transplantation and cord blood preservation. Ask how the company uses their MSAB. They should meet regularly to set quality standards within the company and thereby help to maintain the highest and most advanced level of service available.

You only get one chance to preserve your baby's cord blood. That's why it's important to invest time and energy into selecting the high quality company that you will entrust with this critical task.