Processing and Preserving Your Baby's Stem Cells: a Focus on Quality

Simple Collection Process

LifebankUSA® makes cord blood, placenta blood, and tissue collection experience simple and convenient.

The collection process is completely noninvasive. It is performed by your own health care provider and only takes about 5 minutes. Once your baby has been born and the umbilical cord has been cut, your health care provider will collect the blood from the cord. For placenta-derived stem cells and tissue banking, the whole placenta is simply placed into a special package in the delivery room.

Quick Transit Time

LifebankUSA takes great precautions to ensure that your baby's placenta, cord blood, and tissue are fully preserved from the time they are collected until the time they are processed.

What's more, we take care to ensure that your collection kit gets to our state-of-the-art LifebankUSA laboratories in Cedar Knolls, NJ, as quickly as possible for processing. In fact, the average transit time is only 13.5 hours nationwide because of our close proximity to 3 major airports that are served by every major U.S. airline.¹

Purity, optimal preservation methods, and quick transit times: more good reasons to choose LifebankUSA.

Please click here to read more about the LifebankUSA 99% purity difference.

Heparin-free Collection Bags

At LifebankUSA, we use an FDA-recommended anticoagulant, citrate phosphate dextrose (CPD) solution, in our collection bags for cord blood preservation. This cell-protecting solution is also recommended by the US Department of Health and Human Services.^2,3 CPD preserves cell metabolism, allowing the cells to maintain their integrity in the time between collection and processing. Some other cord blood banks use a different anticoagulant, lyophilized (dry) heparin, which does not contain dextrose, and begins to break down after 12 hours. Compared to dry heparin, cord blood units collected with liquid CPD contain more CD34+ cells.⁴ LifebankUSA uses only liquid CPD.

Keeping Your Investment Secure

Once your bar-coded and labeled collection kit arrives by courier at LifebankUSA, each component is inspected and accounted for during a strict protocol verification process. Rigorous measures are then taken to protect against contamination. These measures include, among others, minimizing exposure to air and ensuring sterile conditions.

Your baby's cord blood is processed in a specialized laboratory. During processing, plasma is extracted and red blood cells are removed. Then, stem cells are separated and collected from the plasma. In addition, tests are conducted to determine cell count, cell viability, and the number of CD34+ cells present (the cells that have been shown to improve transplant success and survival). Placental blood processing and tissue banking are performed in a separate lab in the same facility where the technician uses a pump to remove the stem cell-rich blood to prepare for storage.

Once the trained experts at LifebankUSA process your baby's stem cells, they place the cord blood-derived stem cells and placenta-derived stem cells into separate storage bags. Each LifebankUSA storage bag is compartmentalized into 2 segments, resulting in the preservation of a total of 4 segments. Importantly, the compartmentalized bags allow transplant physicians to use a portion of the banked cells or all of them, as needed. Cells are "cryopreserved" in a vapor-phase liquid-nitrogen storage tank at approximately -190°C. Processed tissue is stored in vials using the same cryogenic method. The temperature is monitored 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Additionally, LifebankUSA storage tanks are maintained to the highest standards and have an emergency backup system that helps provide optimal long-term security for your baby's stem cells.

Stem cells from placental and cord blood are indicated to rebuild blood. View Product Information