After childbirth, the cord is detached from the baby and cord blood is collected from the umbilical cord. This blood is collected to cure hematopoietic and other genetic disorders. Cord blood is specially required to cure such disorders as it contains stem cells including hematopoietic cells. The blood in the umbilical cord is generally thrown away as a medical waste. Hence, once it is collected for research work, it does no harm to the new born or to the mother. The process of Cord Blood Collection is very important in medical science. There are various methods to collect this blood. The most popular way to collect this blood is the most common and standard blood collection technique, which is known as, closed technique. In this method, the vein of the severed umbilical cord is cannulated with a help of a needle, which is connected to a blood bag. This helps the cord blood flow to the bag. With the help of this method, 75 ml of cord blood can be collected. This cord blood cannot be collected at any point of time. It can be only collected right after birth. The time to collect the blood is a little crucial; it is after birth but before the placenta is delivered. It is to be noted that there is no risk involved to collect the blood as it is taken after the cord is clamped and cut. The delivery may be vaginal or cesarean, the collection of cord blood is always safe.

All health care provides a U cord and a collection kit to collect the cord blood. Mother’s blood is also collected right after delivery. Blood collected from mother and child are labeled and packaged in special shipping materials. Once the packaging is done, the pickup arrangement is made. The process to store and collect cord blood exists since 1990. There are several cord blood banks, both public and private which stores this blood for future need.

The collection process of the cord blood takes place within 10 minutes of the birth. Minimum amount of 75 ml of cord blood is required to process transplantation later. Before the blood is stored, it is tested for germs for HIV, Hepatitis, tissue typing and few more. In the year 1988, cord blood was used for the treatment of a six years boy affected by Fanconi anemia. Thereafter, cord blood has been used as a source of stem cell and is used in stem cell therapy. It has been proved recently that cord blood is very useful for bone marrow transplantation. Cord blood is particularly useful for children and it has been proved as life saving where suitable bone marrow could not be found. The cord blood is very useful for diseases pertaining to diabetes, cardiovascular, central nervous system. The cord blood needs to be processed with 36 to 48 hours from when it is collected. There are more than 35,000 healthcare across 82 countries which helps to collect the cord blood.