Is baby cord blood banking worth the money?
We took a gamble on it when our daughter was born two years ago. We used CBR. It ran us around $3000, and there is a $150 maintenance fee every year. From an actuarial viewpoint, we should have kept the money, but we are both older parents – I am 58, and my wife is 45. Stem cells, including those from cord blood, hold a good deal of promise for treating diseases that our child – or us – might contract. Ten years from now, those cells might save one of our lives. I know that the overwhelmingly likely outcome is that we will never use them, and our money will be gone, but this is our daughter we’re talking about. We did it out of love, common sense be damned.
