You may have heard all about cord blood donation and now you want to know what happens after the cord blood obtained. It takes the work of the hospital staff as well as the cord blood bank. It takes team work but none of it would be possible if it wasn’t for you. Once you make the decision to donate cord blood it is time to make preparations by calling the cord blood bank to make them aware of your decision. 

Once the baby is born, usually the afterbirth is discarded but if you decide to donate the cord blood, the blood bank staff will take the placenta to a laboratory. There they will work to collect the blood from the cord and put it in a sterile bag.  

Small samples are removed from the sterile bag in order to obtain blood type information and sample testing. Then the cord blood is prepared for frozen. It may be necessary to remove the excess red blood cells and plasma in order to reduce the volume of each cord blood unit. The remainder is almost completely nucleated blood cells that were present when the cord blood was initially collected. This includes the stem cells. The cells are protected from freezing. Once the cord blood is frozen in liquid nitrogen freezers, it is available for immediate access when necessary.  

When a patient with a disease or illness has been diagnosed and the doctor searches for a treatment, the staff may notify the transplant center to request a matched cord blood unit. If there is a match the transplant center then verifies all the information before immediately delivering the transplant unit to the designated hospital. 

There are several ways the cord blood unit is delivered. To learn more about cord blood visit www.cord-blood-banking.org

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