During my last pregnancy, I was very interested in cord blood banking. Unfortunately there was very little information available, and it was way too expensive. This time, after some extensive internet research, I was pleasantly surprised to find that there is now a LOT of information. Information that led me to the conclusion that donating cord blood, was a better option than private banking.
For one thing, donating is free whereas private banking seems to be around $1100 @ birth, and $125 each year. Also, private banking seems to be less useful in most cases than public banking. For example, if a child needs cord blood for the treatment of leukemia, they will not want to use his own cord blood because the disease is likely in his cord blood as well. They would then turn to either a sibling's cord blood, or a public donation which has a 95% chance of finding a suitable match.
I found it absolutely amazing that the childhood leukemia survival rate is now over 75% because of cord blood donations.
So we decided to donate our cord blood. Then came the disappointment. After much searching, I discovered that there is no where to donate cord blood in Manitoba. There is one public bank in Alberta that used to collection nationally, but they have now restricted their collections to only Alberta. So now, unless you live in Alberta, Southern Ontario, or Montreal/Quebec City, you're outta luck. You won't find any public banks that will collect in your area.
There is hope though. The Canadian Blood Services is currently in the process of setting up Canada's first national, publicly-funded cord blood bank. Yay! Unfortunately, they will not begin collecting until April 1, 2013. Even then, I'm not clear on whether or not they'll be collecting nationally at that time, or just in the area of the first collections location. Apparently the whole process is expected to take 8 years, but I'm hoping that they'll be collecting in MB in time for our next baby.
