Bringing a child into the family can be expensive – just the cost of the doctor visits for prenatal care alone can put a dent in any budget. Yet when weighed against the magical joy that baby gives a parent, there’s no comparison.

It’s simply priceless. When you anticipate that arrival, you know there’s nothing you wouldn’t do to give your baby the best in life. You may have seen the brochures about banking your baby’s cord blood, but you’re worried about the cost of cord blood collection.

You might be on the fence because you know the important life giving potential contained in the stem cells in your baby’s cord blood. You want to make sure that your baby has all of the advantages he needs for his health.

Storing his own blood offers one advantage because there’s a lowered chance of rejecting a cord blood donation than there is a donation from a public cord blood bank using an unknown donor. By using an unknown donor, you don’t know the hereditary disease risks that donation could carry.

When you compare the pros and cons, the cost of cord blood collection is very minimal. It’s quick and pain free for both mother and baby. While you’re in the hospital and within ten to fifteen minutes of giving birth, this blood is collected by withdrawing the blood from the cord.

This is handled in a simple way just by using a syringe. Some collection practices, however, use a method in which the cord’s blood is placed into a specially marked collection bag. Everything is labeled and then sent off to be stored.

When you first sign up for cord blood banking, you can expect to pay your first fee to become part of the private cord bank. Because there are annual storage fees, that fee is usually charged up front for new users along with the collecting fee.

You can find storage costs for your baby’s cord blood to start at just under $1,000 up front. But after that, many private facilities are $100 or less annually depending on the facility.

So that means that if you pay $100 a year, you’re paying just over $8.00 a month for your child’s future well being. That’s about $2.00 a week. What parent wouldn’t want to give that little amount of money in order to protect their child?

The cost of cord blood collection and storage is so very minimal for parents who realize how valuable the cord blood actually is. You can find a storage facility online or talk to a friend who may have used one to get some suggestions.

When you get a list of possible cord blood banks to decide on, you can research them through the American Association of Blood Banks which is the association that offers accreditation to blood banks.