A Parents Pregnancy Guide to Cord Blood Banking

How to Choose a Cord Blood Banking Facility?

Ensure you store your child's stem cells in a fully accredited cord blood banking facility. Also inquiry about what licenses and certificates of accreditation the facility has. Here is a list of what to look for:

• Health Care Finance Administration Certificate (Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act '88)
• Accreditation by the American Association of Blood Banks
• Accreditation by the American Society of Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics
• Other state licenses where bank is located.

ABO/Rh - used to determine the blood type of the donor.
ALT (Alanine Aminotransferase) - used in the diagnosis and treatment of hepatic disease, heart disease and hepatotoxicity of some drugs.
CHOL - Cholesterol
RPR - qualitative screening test for the detection of syphilis.
Antibody Screen - used in the detection of unexpected antibodies to red cells in order to prepare or select donor units for transfusion.
HIV-1/2(Human Immunodeficiency Virus Types 1 and 2) - - used to detect antibodies to HIV-1 and/or HIV-2 and to identify potentially infectious units of donated blood and plasma.
HTLV-I/II (Human T-Lymphotropic Virus Types I & II) - - used as a screen for donated blood to prevent transmission of HTLV-I and HTLV-II to recipients of blood components.
HbsAg (Hepatitis B Surface Antigen) - - used as a qualitative and/or semi-quantitative test of total antibody to Hepatitis B Surface Antigen as an aid in the diagnosis of Acute Hepatitis B.
NAT (Nucleic Acid Test) - used for screening blood donors at unknown risk for HIV-1 infection.
HBC (Hepatitis B core Antibody) -used for the detection of total antibody to Hepatitis B virus core antigen, screening of blood and blood products intended for transfusion and as an aid in the diagnosis of ongoing or previous Hepatitis B virus infection.
HCV (Hepatitis C Virus) - used to detect antibody to Hepatitis C Virus
CMV (Cytomegalovirus) Total Antibody - used as a screen for the presence of antibody to CMV in blood or plasma donors.
NAT-HCV & NAT HIV - - Nucleic Acid Testing (NAT) utilizes highly specific probes to detect the DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and/or RNA (ribonucleic acid) of the Hepatitis C virus and the Human Immunodeficiency Virus

Confirmatory Tests performed:
HIV-1 NAT Neutralization Test
HbsAg Confirmatory Test (Neutralization)