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| |    Technical Aspects of Cord-Blood Banking by Elisa Ross, MD reviewed and revised by Marjorie Greenfield, M.D. If you are interested in storing your baby's umbilical-cord blood because of its possible use in emerging medical treatments, you must make arrangements with a blood bank before your child is born. The collection procedure is quite simple: After delivery of the baby, the umbilical cord is clamped and cut in the usual way. The blood that remains in the umbilical-cord vessels is then collected in sterile containers. The blood may be removed from the cord with a large needle or allowed to flow freely, depending on the company's collection system. The containers may look like large test tubes or like the plastic bags used in a blood bank. It does not cause the mother or the baby any pain to collect the blood, and no blood is taken that the baby needs at the moment. The nurse, midwife, or physician will then label the samples, check them over with you, and package them for a special pickup arranged with a commercial carrier. When the blood arrives at the blood-bank facility, it is processed and the parents are notified. It is then kept in an advanced storage system for years. How do I know that my sample is safe? Power outages and bankruptcies potentially could threaten any organization, but so far none have been reported. It is to be hoped that the scientists in these banks would arrange for safe transfer to another facility if the need arose. Public cord-blood banks
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