In the recent years, there has been a lot of talk about cord blood banking and it is nother one of those millions of decisions that new-parents-to-be need to make. I am not going to write for or against the process. It is a personal decision. There are pros and there are cons. I have banked Baby I’s cord blood and I sincerely hope that we will never have a reason to use it. But if there is such a situation I do not want to say, oh I wish we had done it.

But the cost of cord blood banking in the US is exorbitant and it is approximately a collection fee of 2000$+a monthly fee of around 100$. This was a major deterrent for us. We found a wonderful option and I wanted to document it for anyone who might consider cord blood banking.

We collected the cord blood in the US and banked it in India. The cost of cord blood banking in India is much much cheaper than in the US. The big issue is getting the cord blood shipped to India asap. The doctor delivering Baby I collected the cord blood and R shipped it off to Delhi from a nearby FedEx center using a 2-day service. We did a bit of research into freight shipping but we realized it takes the same time as FedEx express. Also there are some issues over shipping cord blood as it might be considered a bio-hazardous material.

Yes there are issues but it can be done. It has to reach the processing facility in 72 hours and our shipment did reach in 48 hrs. So it is doable. I know there are lot of things that can go wrong. But I just wanted to send a message to other parents who are considering cord blood banking that it is possible. I researched a lot into shipping cord blood to India but could not find anything online so I vowed then to write on my blog so that it will help some parent.

IF you have any further questions leave me a comment or email me at poohsden at gmail dot com. I would be more than happy to help.