Your baby’s cord blood is rich in stem cells that can be used to treat many life threatening conditions.
These stem cells are a perfect match for your child and can potentially be used by siblings too.
We only have one opportunity to collect and store your baby’s cord blood, and that’s at birth.
Store your baby's cord blood to potentially help them in the future.
Cell Care offers complete online enrolment. It’s a simple 4-step process that takes approximately 10 minutes to complete.
Cell Care will courier a personalised collection kit directly to your home. Take the kit with you to hospital where collection of cord blood and tissue is performed by a Cell Care collector, obstetrician or midwife.
Once we have received your baby’s cord blood and tissue at our laboratory, it is processed and stored for potential future use.
With prepaid storage all processing and storage fees are combined. You can prepay 20 or 30 years of storage, or our new Lifetime storage plan. Pay either at birth or in monthly payments over 12 or 24 months.
With annual storage you are required to pay an initial processing fee and then an ongoing annual storage fee for as long as you wish to continue.
*Storage fees are subject to change
Cord blood and cord tissue are rich in powerful stem cells and can only be collected at birth for potential future use.
Stem cells from cord blood can be used now for medical treatments, and there is an expanding range of new therapies being researched that may use cord blood and tissue in the future.
Your baby's stem cells are a perfect match for your child and can potentially be used by siblings and close family members.
Siblings have a much higher probability of a match than an unrelated donor.
Collection of cord blood and tissue is performed by a trained Cell Care collector, obstetrician or midwife.
Cord blood collection takes place after the birth of the baby once the cord has been clamped and cut. The cord blood is collected into a sterile collection bag. The procedure is non-invasive for both mother and baby and takes around three minutes. The cord tissue is collected after the delivery of the placenta.
Cell Care has its own state-of-the-art processing and storage facility in Victoria. The facility has continuous CCTV security monitoring, controlled swipe card access and back-to-base intrusion alarms monitored by an external security company 365 days a year. Critical areas have been temperature-mapped and are continuously monitored. A 12,000L bulk liquid nitrogen tank maintains supplies to each cryogenic storage vessel via vacuum insulated piping, ensuring that the cells have a continuous source of liquid nitrogen.
The method of delivery does not affect the process of cord blood and tissue collection. Once your baby has been delivered and the umbilical cord clamped and cut, the collection can take place.
If you are having a caesarean delivery, our collection pack is completely sterile and suitable for use in theatre.
Currently there is no use-by date for cord blood stem cells. Published results suggest that after 27 years of cryopreservation, cord blood stem cells maintain viability.46