Three months prior to my due date my husband Jason, who is a doctor, and I were deciding on the baby’s name, announcements, where to hold the baby naming, room decor and to cord blood bank or not. I asked my doctors, childbirth educator, friends and parents what they thought about cord blood banking and everyone seemed to be neutral as long as we had the money. With little to go on I started doing my own research.
I quickly learned that science offers many promising uses for the stem cells now and in the future. We chose to family bank on future potential next, we had to figure out where. The doctors I spoke to recommended ViaCord and 2 others. We chose ViaCord for the following reasons:
- ViaCord is a product of a Biotechnology company – the other cord blood companies are really just freezers, they do little to no research of their own.
- Selective Amplification- this is an amazing process with great potential. I urge you to look into this further. Right now, one umbilical cord is used for one transplant. Selective Amplification (which is only Viacord technology) could potentially treat much, much more! This cell expansion technology could allow a family that has banked to be able to use their cells more than once and for multiple family members.
- ViaCord trains Doctors, Childbirth Educators, Doula's, Midwives, and hospital staff on their process of collection to optimize the stem cell collection. If someone on staff at the hospital is unsure of how to collect ViaCord will walk them through the process.
- FDA registered, AABB accredited and CLIA certified.
- Easy collection pick-up. My husband only needed to make one phone call and a medical courier came.
- ViaCell partners with Amgen and Genzyme
- Accreditation in New York
- Financial Strength and Reinvestment into research.
- Convenient payment plan- I hear people say they can't afford to bank. Viacord has made the payment plan so easy that by cutting out a cup of coffee a day banking becomes affordable
- Customer Service not only with patients but with doctors. Click here a great story.
Yes, cord banking is an added expense. As parents, my husband and I decided we couldn't put a price on the present or future potential uses of our child's cord blood stem cells. I think it is important to remember this could be a future investment. We are pleased with our choice to bank with ViaCord.
In 2003 I decided to team up with ViaCord as a Mothers Consultant. In the Mothers Consultant role I am an independent mommy that educates others on how and why I chose to bank. My goals are to: make parents more aware that stem cell preservation exists and to urge parents to spend as much time researching cord blood banking as they do with finding a name. Please contact me if you need support.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."- Charles Duell, Commissioner US Office of Patents 1899.
