To bank or donate your baby cord blood

Cord Blood is the blood that comes with the umbilical cord during the birth of the baby. In the earlier days, it was considered as a bio-waste. Today, it was medically proven that it contained rich source of stem cells that can be used to help patients with life-threatening illness! 

I got to know Cord Blood Banking after attending some child birth seminar. The seminar was sponsored by a Private Cord Blood Bank and they shared with us the benefit of banking our baby's cord blood.

In gist, here's what I gathered:

- The parents will sign a contract with this private cord blood bank which will lapse when the baby reached adult hood (21 years old).

- There is a fee for it.

- During birth, the doctor will collect the cord blood and put them into a container ,which will be courier to the Cord Blood Bank.

-  When there is a need, the parents can withdraw the cord blood at any time.

- When the baby reach 21 years old, he/she can choose to extend the contract or terminate the contract.

*What happen to the cord blood if they choose to terminate?*

Then I moved on to understand more about the public Cord Blood Bank where the Cord Blood are donated by willing parents, who have no intention of banking their baby's Cord Blood for their own use.

In gist, here's how it works:

- Registration with the Cord Blood Bank to sign the declaration form of your health status and family history of any blood disorder.

- During birth, the hospital would need submit the mother's blood sample and the baby cord blood to the public cord blood bank.

- The cord blood bank would do a lab test on the cord blood to ensure it is healthy and 'bankable'. if yes, they would proceed to do a blood test from the mother's blood sample to confirm the finding.

- After it is done, the mother would be informed of the result and the donation process is considered over.

Some Q&A that I gathered from the public Cord Blood Bank consultant:

If the cord blood is deemed as unhealthy, the family cannot retrieve back from the public cord blood bank to be transferred to a private cord blood bank. It makes sense because the cord blood would be useless if it cannot be accepted in the public cord blood bank.

If the family needs the cord blood, they can request to withdraw their own cord blood from the bank - provided it is not taken up by other patients yet.

By the way, the public Cord Blood Bank is accessible internationally too! A stem cell match is not easy to find and the hospital may have to source for a suitable match from other countries' cord blood bank if they cannot find it locally.  This means, someone from the other part of the world may be able to have his 2nd lease of life if he managed to find his match from this public cord blood bank.

In addition, this public cord blood bank has a stringent procedure to collect the cord blood. They do not accept transfer of cord blood from private cord blood bank and from home birth. They only collect them fresh from the hospital after birth.

This is what I had concluded - the difference between private and public cord blood bank.

Private Cord Blood Bank	Public Cord Blood Bank
Get to reserve your own cord blood for future needs	Not available for own retention and it is make available for donation to other people
Subscription fee is applicable	Not available since it’s based on donation
When the contract ended, the cord blood cannot be donated to the public cord blood bank	Not applicable

There’s one more thing to note , the cord blood may not be suitable for your family members or relatives in the event of complicated life threatening disease. Therefore, weighing the difference between the 2, I decided to donate my cord blood with my country public cord blood bank .(http://www.scbb.com.sg/).

Of course, I don't mean that private cord blood bank is no good.Some families DO have a needs to reserve their baby cord blood for some reason or another.

Do make a sound decision by making good use of the cord blood -  it may create miracle for another person's life!

Check out your local cord blood bank now! :)

Thoughts from my visit to the Obstetrician (OB)

* An OB is like a wise owl, assisting God to help mothers to give birth to the God's child. [To me, each and every children are God's child]

Today is my scheduled appointment with my OB. He is Dr Koh and he runs a private women's clinic near my office. His clinic are decorated with baby photos from his patients and I realized some of my friends are his patients when I ran into them during my scheduled appointment. So I think he must be quite popular because I walked in to his clinic just because his clinic is near my office.

When I went in, Dr Koh greeted me warmly with his tag "How are you,my friend?". I felt very welcome.

My mum was with me in the consultation room and I could see that he's trying to make her feel involved during the checkup by telling her the progress of the baby.

I asked him some questions about some funny symptoms I have , such as I am having difficulty finding a position to sleep without the baby kicking me violently. He told me it's normal. I also asked him where's the position of my baby like where's the head and leg, he mentioned the baby is currently still moving around. I asked this because I felt the movement coming from a usual position and I was curious what was it that move. He told me that position is the butt - well, it means that my baby is literally butting me :) The way he responded make me sense that he could be very tired.

I begin to think that OB is a noble job. Beside stationing in their clinic for consultation, they have to monitor their patient's progress and to answer their patient's calls! Most OB have 24 hr hotline and they literally have to answer calls even in the middle of the night! I feel for them and they must be very passionate in their job in order to sustain in this line for so long! I only called the hotline once during an emergency in my previous pregnancy when I was having a miscarriage and he called back and assisted me. During this pregnancy, there was once he called me personally to arrange an urgent screening because there was some abnormality in my initial health screening. Fortunately, everything was fine during my 2nd detailed screening.

During the ultra sound scan, he scanned for the head and listen to the heart beat. And he seems to know what I'm thinking (because I always pray for my baby to be a Happy baby) and he told me 'See, your baby heartbeat is telling you - Happy Happy Happy Happy'. I really felt amused when he said this. As usual, he printed a copy of the ultra sound scan and I'm quite surprised when he handed them to my mother.

Well, this is my 1st OB and I felt that he have set a reasonable high benchmark on my impression of an OB.

Overall, I felt that OBs are really as noble as the mothers they are serving. Afterall, they are helping women to transit their next phase of life as a mother!

Thank you Dr Koh!

Up and down of being pregnant

Due to pregnancy and I am feeling heavier and breathless. I'm trying to keep my stamina and mental high with my willpower and prayer!

Feeling my feet getting swollen - good thing is it started to swell heavily in evening. Which means, during the day time I can still wear my normal shoes to work.

Guess this is one of the side effect of being pregnant, other than that, I have some nice 'side effect' too!

Overwhelming contribution of baby clothes and accessories

During these few days, my cousin's colleagues passed me their hand-me-down baby clothes , accessories and toys. I am quite touched by their gesture.I had gathered more than 100 pieces of baby clothes and I concluded my baby need a bigger wardrobe than myself. I don't think I have more than 100 pieces in my wardrobe.

Chinese believed that babies should wear 'hand-me-down' clothes because it would make them a humble and grounded baby. Thinking from a logical point of view , it is to save money because baby grow very fast especially from 0-6 months! And of course, 'hand-me-down' clothes are usually softer and more comfy because they are 'pre-washed' multiple times.

One of my colleague offered to donate her baby cot and other accessories because she decided not to give birth anymore. She's my age and have a lovely son.

My friend offer to pass me her Medela freestyle but I told her I'll borrow from her to test it out before I buy them myself- for hygiene purpose.

Big thanks to my friends and colleague for the contribution!

I think once I consolidated my "loot", I'll be able to identify what is outstanding and get the other necessity items to prepare for the arrival.

Having the privilege of people giving up their seat

Well, I'm not so desperate to demand for a seat whenever I commute to work. Depending on my luck, sometime I have some kind soul giving up their seat to me and some don't. I'm always thankful whenever I have a seat because if I stand too long, I would end up a heavy bladder even though I didn't drink.

Having people to give up their seat to you is your privilege and not an entitlement.

People would be more aware of your well-being and safety

The people around me would be looking out for me and offer their help if I'm carrying bulky items or offer me a chair if I'm standing. I'm also able to ask hubby to help me with my laundry and the housework too!

All these kindness acts as a relieve to the physical change I'm encountering. I put on a lot of weight and tummy growing bigger to the extend I cannot see my legs! There was a time where I need to check if I'm wearing my undies correctly, I need to go to the mirror to check because I cannot see or bend forward! That's cruel. Soon I would probably need to go to the nail salon to cut my toe nail....

One more fun fact

My baby will insist I seat in a correct posture without touching my belly. If I did not seat straight or lean my tummy against the table or any surface, I would feel a push from inside to push it away! The feeling is like having a fish swimming in your tummy. So whenever I feel not much movement, I would do such trick to stimulate the movement from the baby. :)