WHAT ARE YOUR OPTIONS ? As a to-be-parent, you have three options when deciding what to do with your baby's cord blood: 1. You can store your baby's cord blood for your own private use. Our founder established Natasha's Place after losing his daughter to a procedure that required a bone marrow transplant from an unrelated donor. He strongly believes that everyone, especially mixed heritage and minorities, should bank their children's cord blood. His daughter developed leukemia, stem cell transplants are now being used to treat more than 80 medical conditions and diseases. When privately storing your cord blood, it will not be available to the general public and will be available only at your direction. Currently, there are thousands of scientists and projects worldwide working on regenerative medicine (re-growing body parts lost through aging, injury or illness) and many families are opting for personal storage of their cord blood based on the current trends and future potential. LEARN MORE ABOUT FAMILY STORAGE 2. You can donate your baby's cord blood for public use. By donating your baby's cord blood you are possibly saving the life of another human being. This blood can be used to help treat an unrelated third party or for research of new treatments. The donation of cord blood stem cells is especially important to mixed heritage people and minorities who often die because they either can't find a donor or are forced to use partially matched bone marrow cells, which result in far more life-threatening complications than unmatched cord blood stem cells. LEARN MORE ABOUT PUBLIC DONATION 3. You can allow the hospital to discard your baby's cord blood. This is the option that should not be an option. Discarding the baby's cord blood was once considered the standard procedure. However, you now know that this "medical waste" contains precious life saving stem cells.