What is a Public cord blood bank

Public cord blood banks aim to establish a nationwide inventory with a sufficient number of cord blood units to provide a high probability of finding a compatible unit for any patient requiring a transplant.

The increase use of cord blood, as opposed to peripheral blood or bone marrow, as the stem cell source of choice, is leading to a significant increase in the number of cord blood units being collected by public banks.

Public banks collect cord blood from altruistic donors (allogeneic) that have accepted to donate their child's cord blood at some point during pregnancy. The 'consent' process is country dependent but the decision to donate is sought well before birth to avoid any decision making during the birth period.

Public cord blood banks can be established within a maternity hospital but more commonly they collect cord blood units from a number of different hospitals in their region.

The cord blood collection may be performed by the bank's dedicated staff or by hospital staff trained by the bank.

A maternity hospital will usually only work with one cord blood bank so it is very easy for parents to obtain information about the bank and quality of the service it is providing.

Public banks collect cord blood units from less than 2% of births and over 50% of the cord units collected are rejected for not meeting certain acceptance criteria that are bank-specific.

A number of public cord blood banks also offer private or family banking services.

Sepax is used by over 70% of Netcord cord blood banks.