Umbilical Cord Blood Banking

There are a number of private companies in Australia selling this service.

Below are links to the RANZCOG Position Statement on this issue and the website of the Australian Bone Marrow Registry (ABMR), which manages the free public donation system in Australia for Umbilical Cord Blood.

          RANZCOG Statement

          AMBR FAQs re Cord Blood Donation

NB. As noted in the AMBR information, it is not possible to make a public donation of your cord blood in Darwin (except for some Indigenous mothers at Royal Darwin Hospital). AMBR runs its collection system “down south” in large hospitals where this can be done most efficiently. However, anyone in the Northern Territory can still access the AMBR system if needed for their own treatment.

There are three important issues to consider here (apart from the very considerable cost of private cord blood banking):

1. Delayed cord clamping is the practice where the umbilical cord is not clamped or cut until after pulsations have ceased [or until after a specific period of time, usually 60 seconds] or until after the placenta is delivered. [Delaying for 60 seconds has been proven to reduce risk of death in preterm born babies]. You are not able to delay cord clamping when collecting umbilical cord blood as the cord must be clamped early to capture the most stem cells (RANZCOG).
2. Some commercial groups claim that cord blood can prevent or cure a range of diseases, but there is currently insufficient evidence to prove this. In the future, the range of diseases treated using cord blood might be expanded as science and technology advances (RANZCOG).
3. In Australia, we have the AMBR Cord Blood Collection system to provide Cord Blood Stem Cells free of charge to individuals who require such treatment, usually children with blood diseases such as Leukaemia.