Gemma,

Sarah Buckley, the author of the article on the BellyBelly site sent me this reply for you:

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Cord blood banking involves taking 100 ml or so of blood from the baby at birth. This blood - around 1/2 a cup - represents around 1/3 of the newborn baby's total blood (equivalent to 1.5 to 2l in an adult). This blood is needed to fill up the baby's organs that are not used (and therefore not supplied with blood) in the womb- liver, kidney, lung gut and skin. Cord blood collection requires early cord clamping, so the baby does not have the chance to get this extra blood, which is transferred to the baby from the placenta in the first 1 to 3 minutes after birth. The baby who misses this blood is more likely to become anaemic in the first 3 months, because they also miss the iron that is in this blood - equivalent to the iron in 100 litres of breast milk.

Banking this blood for the baby's own use is promoted in the US by private blood banks, who make their money by charging hundreds of dollars for collection and storage. The chance of this blood being useful for the individual in the future is extremely low, especially because many of the health problems the child could suffer would also be present in the blood.

We also do not know how long the blood will last, especially when standards of storage may not be perfect in the private system. Altruistic donations of newborn's cord blood for public use have the same problems, in that they require taking this 100 mls of blood. The question you could consider is this- would you allow someone to take 1/2 cup of your newborn baby's blood, because it may possibly benefit someone in the future? Or, for that matter, would you offer 1.5 to 2L of your own blood? (This is 3 to 4 times the 500 mls that blood banks take). The updated version of the "Leaving Well Alone" article (on issues like this) will be published in my upcoming book, Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering, due out in October. See http://www.sarahjbuckley.com .

Thanks,
Sarah