Collecting, treatment, and storage of cord blood
Hemafund / For parents / How to save the cord blood / Collecting, treatment, and storage of cord blood
STEP 1: First meeting and registration
We work in all regions of Ukraine and are ready to organize collection of cord blood in any maternity house. In order to organize storage of cord blood of your baby, it is sufficient for you to contact us per telephone. Your personal medical consultant of the Family bank of cord blood “Hemafund” will answer all your questions, help you to choose the service package, and make a contract. Our medical consultants are 24-hour ready to provide you with a qualified telephone consultation in case of an urgent necessity to register blood collection.
We are open for You at all stages of our collaboration – from the first consultation till laying a deposit and issue of a Passport of a deposit holder.
STEP 2. Arriving to a maternity hospital
Your personal kit for cord blood collection (certified by the Ministry of Health of Ukraine) with respective accompanying documents will be issued into Your hands in advance or delivered to any chosen by You maternity hospital of Ukraine. We are sure to instruct Your doctor in details for high quality collection of cord blood. You should just remind Your doctor about Your wish to collect the cord blood and store it in the Family bank of cord blood “Hemafund”.
The personal kit contains:
- a sterile system for cord blood collection;
- a thermal container for the system;
- a cooling agent;
- a form of an Accompanying ticket;
- a form of an Informed agreement;
- a transport bag.
STEP3: Collection procedure
The process of collection of cord blood is simple, painless, and safe for a mother and a child.
After the birth of a child, a doctor cuts the umbilical cord, punctuate the vein at the mother end of the umbilical cord and collects the cord blood into a special sterile vessel with an anticoagulant without contacting the newborn child.
The whole process takes not more than 10 minutes, occurs without a contact with a mother or her child and can be performed upon both natural birth and cesarean section.
STEP 4: Delivery to the cryo-depository
A package with collected cord blood of Your child and accompanying documents is placed into a specially marked thermocontainer with a cooling agent provided by the company “Hemafund”. Your family name, the name of the maternity hospital, the date and the time of the intake are indicated on the package with the collected cord blood and the personal ticket of the thermobag. The container is delivered to a laboratory by an expeditor of the company “Hemafund” or a courier service authorized for transportation of biological materials. An unique number is assigned to the collected cord blood sample by the laboratory, then it is passed for the further treatment.
STEP 5:Treatment
After the registration by the laboratory, the cord blood is treated by the procedure of extraction and cryo-conservation of hematopoietic stem cells in accordance with international protocols. During the sample treatment, the number of cells is counted, probes for laboratory investigations are taken.
During the laboratory analysis, tests for bacterial sterility and presence of viral infections are carried our. They are the fist diagnosis of the health of Your baby.
All manipulations with every blood sample are performed individually.
STEP 6:Freezing
After the treatment procedure is completed, the blood doses (or, more precisely, the leukocytal fraction of the cord blood) of Your baby are placed into several airtight test tubes which are packed together with satellite test tubes into an individual personal metal cassette designed for long term storage of blood and its components at super-low temperatures. Stepwise, computer controlled cooling of the leukocytal fraction of the cord blood is performed in a programmed cooler which prevents cell damaging. Then the blood sample is transferred into a temporal cryo-depository until the analyses results are available (4-6 weeks).
STEP 7: Storage of the cord blood
After the analyses results confirming sterility of blood and absence of viral infections have been obtained, the sample is placed into a permanent cryo-depository for permanent storage. The cryo-depository is a special vessel filled with liquid nitrogen of the natural temperature -196 ºС.
After payment is completed, the fact of placement of a blood sample into the cryo-depository is confirmed by a deposit Passport indicating details of the deposit owner and the major characteristics of Your sample. The deposit passport confirms also the exclusive property right of the owner family regarding the particular cord blood sample. Your deposit can be withdrawn from the cryo-depository only at Your written order. It can be whether unfrozen and prepared for use or passed to you in the frozen state.