The cord blood donation ads are everywhere: in the midwives, the waiting room for u/s, the first page of parenting magazine, right next to the sign-in sheet for NSTs ... and they are all really aggressive, something along the lines of "Would you spend $2000 to save your child's life?" And recently, they make me pissed.
See, we have been trying rather hard to find a way to donate the cord blood from the bargain baby. We were all set up to do so for the fusspot except that the donation kit arrived a day too late in the mail. If you read those ads you'd think that cord blood is like liquid gold and biracial baby's cord blood is in particular demand and honestly if this was like the bone marrow registry and you had to donate $50 or so to donate your cord blood, we'd totally be up for that (not all bone marrow donation sites require donations, but the one that JD and I used does). Except that it seems to be particularly hard to donate in NYC. There are a few hospitals which are set up for it, but ours (which happens to have the largest L and D system in the city, I'm pretty sure) isn't. So we need to arrive with kit in hand and have a place ready to come pick up the kit within a few hours of the delivery. And we simply can't find someone.
The one place we've found is Life.ba.nk USA (found on marrow.org) and while we will probably go that route, they only pick up on certain days and more importantly they use their donations for scientific research. I am well aware that cord blood donation is not exactly cost-free for the baby (the sooner you clamp the cord the greater their chance of anemia along the way, and we all know how I feel about that particular issue. On the other hand, all babies had their cords clamped immediately until very recently and we seem to have survived just fine), but it certainly seems worth it to potentially help another family, and probably worth it for scientific research, for us. But seriously, how can the for-profit industry be quite so aggressive when the "public banks" are apparently so underfunded that they can't afford to send someone to come collect particularly needed donations in one of the largest hospitals in a major city in the U.S?
And if anyone has donated in the greater-NYC area and has any wisdom on how to do so (our midwives are fully trained to collect cord blood and happy to do so, so that's not an issue at all) do please let me know!
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4 comments:
I don't have any advice, but I wouldn't worry about this one too much. I work on the same floor as the people from one of the public banks and half the donations don't make it into the bank anyway. I donated at my local hospital and was able to follow up with the bank once I returned to work. Turns out there wasn't any blood in the cord by the time it was received at the lab. Even at participating hospitals, cord blood is only collected during certain hours anyway. I'm not trying to discourage you. It's a good cause and I hope you find a way to make it work. Good luck!
I tried to donate my son's cord blood. I delivered at a hospital in Westchester that doesn't have the necessary number of births per year to donate for free. For me to DONATE it was going to cost me a few hundred bucks! I was appalled, and my response was, 'I'm not going to pay to do a mitzvah!'
The expense turned me off to trying to bank. I am a member of the Nat'l Bone Marrow Registry. There was no cost to sign up, so I am kinda shocked to hear there is where you are?! All it took was them drawing an extra tube or two of blood one of the times I went to donate here at the major blood bank. Once a year they email me to make sure my contact info is up to date. That's it!
I don't have any advice unfortunately, but anytime I looked into it here in the much smaller city directly south- it was extremely cost-prohibitive to even donate! Which I find so depressing & discouraging.
Good luck!
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