What is the cost of Cord blood storage?

Cord blood is basically the blood which is left in the umbilical cord of the baby after the cord is detached.


This is a very important source of stem cells that can be of great value to your baby and family. This has given birth to the trend of cord blood storage. Around 80 serious diseases can be treated with the help of the cord blood and it has the potential to treat those cases which do not have any cure.

Cord blood storage pricing plays a very important role since most of the insurance companies are skeptical and unwilling to pay for the costs. Thus using cord blood can be feasible only for those who can afford the price. In the year 2002, the price range was between $350 and $1750 in private banking.

But in the year 2004, this increased to a range of $900 to $1800.Now the most common question is that as to why there was an increase with a factor of 2. As per the statistics, the banks have been stating that it costs around $1000 in order to process a cord blood sample.

And one can leave out tests in order to cut down the costs. However, if you go for non-profit cord blood registries then you would find that these are quite different from private banking fees. The private banks charge a fee for processing as well as storing the sample of cord blood. But the donor registry provides an economical option since they collect a fee when a sample is released for transplant.

Another fact is that the costs incurred by the private banks are not the same as those of non-profit cord blood registries. In non-profit registries, laboratory labor and the testing constitute 70% of total cost. A lot of testing is done on the cord blood which is stored for public use.

In case a sample fails in the test, it has to be discarded and cannot be used. However many of these tests are not performed by the private banks. HLA-typing is performed in public donor registry but not by the private banks and is quite expensive.

Basically the income source in public donor registry are the sources that are released for transplant whereas in case of a private bank the income source is each of the sample that is processes and stored. Donor registries are also supposed to pay rent for the research grants and private banks for commercial property.

The advertising services are kept minimal for public donor registries while the advertise services constitute the major budget item in case of the private banks. In the nutshell, the donor registries do not seek profit which is opposite in case of the private banks.

Thus, a lot of options are available for the people as far as cord blood banking is concerned and information can also be obtained from the online sources. You can also seek the help of your physician for any further help.