I have been reading about this and Ambah, you are spot on. Unfortunately only a select few of the public hospitals have public donations of cord blood, otherwise if you go to another hospital you have to go with one of the private firms and pay the $8000.

I think that the public system sounds great, your cord blood is available for anyone who needs it and it is still available for your baby and family. The public info says that it there is a 85% chance it will be available in 10 years if you or your family does need it.

The hospital I am going to doesn't have the public cord bank available. For me this is a real dilemma, I mean private collection and storage is really expensive and we can't really afford it. But I also can imagine if my baby or family were sick and they needed the stem cells and we hadn't kept them, I wouldn't forgive myself. :-({|=

Also I don't think the industry is really regulated, I mean imagine if you did pay the $8000 and then when you needed to use blood they said sorry but it's been spoiled!!!

Anyway that's my 2 cents
Corr