Recommendations for cord blood banking -- thoughts on FamilyCord versus CBR or ViaCord
Most of the posts regarding cord blood banking are over 5 years old so I was hoping to get some more recent recommendations. I'm considering banking my baby's cord blood and have been looking into companies. It seems that CBR and ViaCord are most commonly used, but FamilyCord is offering a substantial discount on the first year (waiving processing fees) if I go with them because I've used an affiliated company for another purpose. I'm wondering if anyone has used or research FamilyCord and whether you think it is on equal footing to CBR and ViaCord. I like that CBR's facility is located in Arizona in an area less prone to natural disasters and that both CBR and ViaCord seem to have worked closely with research institutions on clinical testings using stem cells. Also, ViaCord has maintained data on their success rate 1-year after use of the stem cells and at least one of the companies offers substantial compensation if the stem cells don't engraft. I know it's highly unlikely that I would need/be able to use the stem cells even if I bank them, but if I'm going to spend money to do the banking and ongoing storage I'd like to maximize the changes that the sample will be usable should I need it.
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