I felt really strongly about this whole cord blood registry issue when I was pregnant, and immediately after. After doing plenty of research, we chose to donate Veronica’s cord blood to a public registry. Our reasoning was:

1. The chances of Veronica ever being able to make use of the stem cells in her own cord blood were too minute to justify the ridiculously overpriced collection and storage fees charged by the for-profit cord blood banks.

2. Something about the for-profit nature of the banks themselves just rubbed me the wrong way. I realize that’s somewhat irrational, but hey – if you can’t make emotional decisions when you’re becoming a parent, when CAN you? Plus their high-pressure sales pitches were a REAL turnoff.

3. Knowing that we might be able to help someone else, or medical science in general, by donating our baby’s cord blood just felt better to us than storing it for private use.

The summer after Veronica was born, some dear friends of ours had triplets, and they chose to privately bank their cord blood. I remember having quite a debate with the the dad of the triplets about this decision. He was convinced that it was the right thing to do, and that just because there was little hope of using the stem cells now didn’t mean there wouldn’t be some innovative new way of using them in the future (like maybe in 10 years you can cure acne with it!). I don’t disagree with that position, but it’s not worth thousands of dollars over several years for me to bet on it, frankly. That’s money we could spend on other things – like a better education, family trips, better food, higher quality daycare, a nicer home environment – that I believe will make a difference in my daughter’s life.

There’s a thoughtful article about this on MSNBC (thanks to Mother Talkers). I think what stood out to me most was this quote by Dr. Dennis Confer, chief medical officer for the National Marrow Donor Program in Minneapolis:

Overall, the chance that a publicly stored unit of cord blood will ever be used is about 650 times higher than the odds that a privately banked unit will ever be needed, Confer added.

(emphasis mine)

I hope that public cord blood banking continues to grow (it’s not available at all hospitals, unfortunately). We were lucky enough to donate ours, and I wish everyone had that opportunity – even if they choose to do something else.