Sarah Buckley said she's pretty flat out to do a longer reply but would like to add this:

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I agree that you need to get lots of information and ask lots of questions. The best person to speak with is someone who actually does the collection- the literature seems to be either evasive or ignorant about the importance of the timing of clamping from the baby's perspective.

The public cord blood banking literature says you can wait for the cord to stop pulsing, but when I spoke with someone who actually does the collection, she told me you won't get much blood out if you do this (because the baby has gotten the full placental transfusion). She said they need to clamp within 1-2 minutes max and they prefer to clamp the cord just after the baby has taken the first breath.

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