Cord Blood Preservation

taxus_baccata

Hi All,

I was just wondering if any of you are considering getting cord blood preserved. I'm wondering if I could get this done in Limerick or if any of you have experience of it. There was an article in the Irish Times health supplement about it yesterday. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/health/2012/0207/1224311390343.html

mrsWhippy

In my paperwork from Holles St, they said, that neither they, Rotunda or the Coombe would support stem cell harvesting.

If you were attending a private hospital maybe? I think it would be worth doing if you could tbh ...

taxus_baccata

Only option to have baby in Limerick I'm afraid, Mrs Whippy!

That's mad that they send out letters like that. I think its so unfair to limit peoples options like that . Have first scan in early March so that'll be a priority item on my questions list!

mrsWhippy

Let us know how you get on!

Yeah, the reason was that 'there wasn't adequate proof' or something that there are benefits to storing stem cells so they didn't support it (can't remember the exact wording).

But if you got an outside consultant/health care worker to do the harvesting (and were paying for the service) then surely it's the mothers decision in the end? (proof or no proof!) I can see it might add an overhead to their service maybe but it would only be for a subset of patients too. Annoying!!

Edit: Here ya go! http://www.independent.ie/national-news/collecting-baby-cord-blood-would-cost-1m-a-year-doctor-137383.html

IvyTheTerrible

I know in France it's actually against the law to store cord blood in this way.

However, op, I'm going to do a cord blood donation when my baby is born. This is perfectly legal (I'll try and find out if it's possible in Ireland) and can actually save someone else's life. Also, it doesn't hurt and carries no risk for your baby. Might be worth thinking about.

January

Weren't the Coombe doing a study in 2009/2010 where they took cord blood for research? I was excluded from participating (not sure I would have anyway... didn't research it enough because the decision was taken out of my hands) because of my previous birth history.

http://www.coombe.ie/index.php?nodeId=69&PHPSESSID=623e14c44a035ba8559a6be65217524b

It's not exactly the same thing as you're asking but it's to help with research.

ThisRegard

mrsWhippy wrote: »

In my paperwork from Holles St, they said, that neither they, Rotunda or the Coombe would support stem cell harvesting.

If you were attending a private hospital maybe? I think it would be worth doing if you could tbh ...

Never noticed any documentation like that from the Rotunda, but I'm going back two years. We did enquire about it at the time and were simply told they don't do it but could look into getting a private company to do it.

The impression was they were quite open about allowing a third party do it but we never investigated further so it might have changed had we pushed the matter.

cyning

The bump2babe website has a question on cord blood harvesting: for Limerick it says they don't facilitate the harvesting but under additional information it does say

Only when directed from Pelican house. Private consultants may facilitate private patients.

I would imagine it will be years before it will be readily available in Ireland: very unfortunately I think.

SanFran07

Some private consultants in the Rotunda do this (although the hospital says it doesn't). Interesting that because there is a lack of evidence around this procedure the hospitals are reluctant to facilitate it. Delaying the clamping of the baby's cord is associated with significant benefits for your baby and is well 'evidenced' and yet despite all of the evidence cords are routinely clamped immediately after birth. So the evidence has to suit the hospital...

taxus_baccata

Thanks all, I'll be doing my research! I think I'll ahve to get a private company in to do it, but I am going to the hosptal as a public patient! I had switched to aviva for my health insurance and they make a cobtribution toward cord blood preservation, but through a series of feck ups it turned out that I'm still insured with VHI and paying heftily for it too!

Hope I can use some of my health insurance for lactation consultations etc. I'd prefer to use my health insurace for post partum stuff!

Tore

Hi All, has anyone of you more recent experience of cord blood / stem cell preservation? trying to arrange for it at Rotunda, but it still seems to be very confusing and even Hospital staff does not look like really aware of any procedure in place for it. The latest information we got is that they do it only in case of sick children, in all other cases they do not impede it, but it's totally up to you to arrange the collection. The collection is only allowed to a professional healthcare and we don't know if any at Rotunda trained for it who could do it (the hospital does not provide any name...). Are you aware of any private midwives, even external to Rotunda, that could be available for the collection on the delivery day? thanks for any info/experience you might want to share on this topic.

lazygal

I've had children in Holles St and they wouldn't facilitate it. I went private partly to give myself some wiggle room but they wouldn't let non hospital personnel in to do the collection. I'm still a bit annoyed about it because there's a genetic disorder in my family that stem cell treatment has been shown to help. I'd be interested in hearing if you can get the Rotunda to agree because if we've more I'd consider going there for the cord blood collection.

Penny Dreadful

Public hospitals can't afford to store cord blood for every baby born. It is quite simply too expensive. If you have a familial health problem you can (afaik) store it yourself at your own cost. Private companies offer this facility but the samples are stored outside of Ireland- the USA and Switzerland (again afaik).
Personally with all of the cuts to health services and maternity ones in this particular case due to lack of funding there are other things I'd prefer to see restored or started before the storing of cord blood for each and every baby born here.

Chattastrophe!

In fairness I can't see there being a high demand for the service.

In Holles St, when I gave birth, they collected some of the cord stem cells for a research study (and my baby ended up in ICU with low blood sugar, which may have been related to a delay in clamping the cord, but that's another story!) The point is, they have the facilities and resources there to collect and store the cells, it shouldn't be a big task to do so, when requested, and pass them on to a nominated storage company.

krankykitty

Mount Carmel used to allow this and had staff trained in the collection of the cells and sending them to wherever they get stored. Gone now, unfortunately

lazygal

Penny Dreadful wrote: »

Public hospitals can't afford to store cord blood for every baby born. It is quite simply too expensive. If you have a familial health problem you can (afaik) store it yourself at your own cost. Private companies offer this facility but the samples are stored outside of Ireland- the USA and Switzerland (again afaik).
Personally with all of the cuts to health services and maternity ones in this particular case due to lack of funding there are other things I'd prefer to see restored or started before the storing of cord blood for each and every baby born here.

We were willing to pay all costs of collection and storage as stem cell treatment works for the illness in our family but the blanket refusal meant we weren't allowed. It was more to do with allowing non hospital staff into collect the cord material than financial considerations. I wouldn't care about it if it hadn't been proven to help treat the illness, but it has.

SanFran07

Neighbourhood Midwives provide this service. No doubt you're aware that there are significant benefits to leaving the cord to finish pulsating so your baby receives all of the blood. Immediate cord clamping can result in as much as 1/3 of your baby's blood being left behind in the placenta putting your baby at higher risk of iron deficient anaemia.

lazygal

SanFran07 wrote: »

Neighbourhood Midwives provide this service. No doubt you're aware that there are significant benefits to leaving the cord to finish pulsating so your baby receives all of the blood. Immediate cord clamping can result in as much as 1/3 of your baby's blood being left behind in the placenta putting your baby at higher risk of iron deficient anaemia.

I'm not eligible for midwife led care and prefer private consultant led care.

SanFran07

Apologies for the confusion, I mean they offer this service as an extra - so you can have consultant care and hire NM to provide the cord collection service. I don't know the full details of the midwife being on call for your baby's birth but talk to NM about the options.

Tore

Hey...thanks for all your answers, just got in touch with Neighbourhood Midwives. They confirm they provide the collection service. I'll get a call back today with all the details.

The thing is that I am not looking for the hospital to collect/store the cord blood. I know this is not offered by the public service. As Lazygal I would do this privately, but still I need the hospital to allow someone external to collect the blood for me as I am not an healthcare professional and only healthcare professional are allowed to do this. So I would be happy to pay whoever could be allowed to collect the blood at birth and then I would arrange an agreement with a private company (there's one in Ireland) that will look after to send the sample to UK and store it for 20 years at my own expense.

@ Lazygal: Rotunda confirmed me that they do not provide the service of collection/storage unless there is an health related issue. In your specific case I would try to get in touch with them as apparently they should support it.

Penny Dreadful

lazygal wrote: »

We were willing to pay all costs of collection and storage as stem cell treatment works for the illness in our family but the blanket refusal meant we weren't allowed. It was more to do with allowing non hospital staff into collect the cord material than financial considerations. I wouldn't care about it if it hadn't been proven to help treat the illness, but it has.

There are a lot of issues with allowing non hospital staff to collect samples of any kind from patients of a hospital, insurance costs, legal responsibility if something happens the samples are mis labelled, stored incorrectly, etc.
I work in the area of research and these are among some of the many concerns hospitals have.
I'm not saying they are right to have this blanket refusal to allow collection in place but I can understand it.

Tore

Penny Dreadful wrote: »

There are a lot of issues with allowing non hospital staff to collect samples of any kind from patients of a hospital, insurance costs, legal responsibility if something happens the samples are mis labelled, stored incorrectly, etc.
I work in the area of research and these are among some of the many concerns hospitals have.
I'm not saying they are right to have this blanket refusal to allow collection in place but I can understand it.

Just for this reason hospital's staff should provide at least the collection service. It's a procedure that takes no more than 2 minutes, with no cost for the hospital, that could save a life, that has no ethical implications whatsoever and that is totally safe. Hopitals in other countries offer the service for free or allow an employee of the storage company to come and collect the sample without making the life impossible to whoever decides to go for it. Why all these difficulties in Ireland?

January

Do the Rotunda collect a sample of cord blood... I'm pretty sure I saw something on my notes about there being a sample of cord blood taken...

Penny Dreadful

Tore wrote: »

Just for this reason hospital's staff should provide at least the collection service. It's a procedure that takes no more than 2 minutes, with no cost for the hospital, that could save a life, that has no ethical implications whatsoever and that is totally safe. Hopitals in other countries offer the service for free or allow an employee of the storage company to come and collect the sample without making the life impossible to whoever decides to go for it. Why all these difficulties in Ireland?

Hospitals in other countries aren't working under the same staffing and budget constraints as the Irish ones are. Every extra task that takes only two minutes adds up.
The collection of the samples requires certain training and not everyone is trained to do it. So then you have either an additional training cost or the few people that can do it are under greater pressure to collect all samples. This pressure will inevitably lead to mistakes being made.
Allowing people who are not employees of the hospital access to patients has a lot of implications in terms of Garda vetting, insurance, confidentiality, etc.
The question can be asked is it ethical to spend the scarce resources on a procedure that may save the life of someone sometime or is it better and fairer to spend the resources on helping more people in the hear and now.
As I said I'm not advocating for the current position but I can understand it.

SusieBlue

I wanted to do this too but my hospital wouldn't facilitate it. Instead I settled for delayed cord clamping, its benefits and advantages really aren't documented enough at all and it should be encouraged more. I'd never even heard of it until my sister-in-law told me about it, she's a medicine student.

Drdoc

January wrote: »

Do the Rotunda collect a sample of cord blood... I'm pretty sure I saw something on my notes about there being a sample of cord blood taken...

This is a sample taken sometimes to measure the pH of the blood to see if baby was very distressed before delivery. The more acidic it is, the more the baby may have been deprived of oxygen. It's collection method would be very different to what would be required for stem cells etc

January

Drdoc wrote: »

This is a sample taken sometimes to measure the pH of the blood to see if baby was very distressed before delivery. The more acidic it is, the more the baby may have been deprived of oxygen. It's collection method would be very different to what would be required for stem cells etc

Thanks for that, yeah baby had fetal blood sampling done while I was in labour and the section was done for failed induction (fetal distress was indicated by his heart rate playing up too), so that would make sense.

Tore

Penny Dreadful wrote: »

Hospitals in other countries aren't working under the same staffing and budget constraints as the Irish ones are. Every extra task that takes only two minutes adds up.
The collection of the samples requires certain training and not everyone is trained to do it. So then you have either an additional training cost or the few people that can do it are under greater pressure to collect all samples. This pressure will inevitably lead to mistakes being made.
Allowing people who are not employees of the hospital access to patients has a lot of implications in terms of Garda vetting, insurance, confidentiality, etc.
The question can be asked is it ethical to spend the scarce resources on a procedure that may save the life of someone sometime or is it better and fairer to spend the resources on helping more people in the hear and now.
As I said I'm not advocating for the current position but I can understand it.

I don't really want to go off topic, but tbh I don't think that 2 more minutes after hours spent on labour and giving birth would really significantly affect the budget of any country. If these same 2 minutes would potentially save even a single life in the future, then the cost would be by far lower than the benefit. Sorry but no, I can't understand this position.

pwurple

We had cord blood taken and stored for baby 1 as part of a medical study. It was taken in CUMH and is stored in UCC. We allowed them to use it though,, so I don't know would any be left if we went looking for it.

On delayed cord clamping, that is now standard procedure in Cork. I spoke to the midwives about it during labour. No special request required, it's the norm.

IvyTheTerrible

Here in France you can donate cord blood for people with illnesses, but it is illegal for them to collect and store the blood for you.
I signed up to donate cord blood but on the day they wouldn't let me because they said I had lived "in the British Isles" in the 90's. As I was mid-labour when this was explained to me I wasn't in a fit state to try to debate it. I was disappointed.

Chattastrophe!

What's the reasoning behind it being illegal to store it there?