Umbilical cord blood or simply “cord blood” is the blood that flows from the placenta to your baby. It is full of oxygen and important stem cells.
Let’s see a couple of things:
-normal hospital protocol
-your options
Routinely, immediately after the baby is born (within seconds), the umbilical cord is clamped, cut, and discarded.
Some people believe that the blood, umbilical cord, and placenta are taken, collected, and used, whether or not you consent….you believe that the placenta, umbilical cord, and blood were simply thrown away.
Umbilical cord bank
You might ask, ‘why would I want to save the umbilical cord blood?’
Because umbilical cord blood is a rich source of stem cells. Stem cells are very important, unspecialized cells. blank cells, which produce all the other blood cells. These include:
- Platelets: necessary for blood coagulation.
- Red blood cells (RBCs): carry oxygen throughout the body
- White blood cells (WBC) – help fight disease
Stem cells are vital to health.
You can choose to store your newborn baby’s umbilical cord blood in a private cord bank or donated to a public cordon bank. If you store it privately, you pay between $1,500 and $2,000 plus an annual storage fee.
Why deprive your baby of its own blood?
It just doesn’t seem logical to pay someone to bank your baby’s cord blood or to donate or dispose of cord blood that is full of oxygen, stem cells, and nutrients. This blood is vital to your baby’s health and needs it to thrive and do well at birth.
How is umbilical/placental blood collected?
All hospitals may not use the exact same method to collect cord blood. Usually, the doctor or nurse inserts a needle into a vein in the umbilical cord and drains the blood into a blood bag. This can be done before or after the mother delivers the placenta. The collection process takes less than 10 minutes
The blood is flowing into a bag instead of your baby…
What happens if you routinely clamp the umbilical cord right away?
Here is a partial list:
- The baby is deprived of up to 50% of its normal blood volume
- Baby on the fast track to becoming anemic (iron deficiency)
- The baby is robbed of very important stem cells
- The baby will often need supplemental oxygen if the cord is clamped too soon.
I hope this encourages you to pursue your options and, with your next baby, ask them to wait to clamp and cut the umbilical cord, which will allow your baby to get all the blood it was designed for in the first place.