An umbilical cord blood bank is a place where cord blood is stored and preserved.

Cord blood has been found to be a lifesaver for a number of people affected by blood related curable afflictions that need bone marrow transplantation or similar stem cell related treatment.

On receiving the umbilical cord blood the bank will first process the cord blood received to ensure that it is devoid of any infection or diseases and make sure that it is eligible for transplantation purposes.

These umbilical cord blood bank centers have special storage facilities where the cord blood can be preserved for a long time until it is required for a treatment or surgery.A lot of awareness has been created on the need and importance of storage of umbilical cord blood, and hence the service offered by such a bank centers towards this purpose.

There are also a few who question the services of such banks and most of such criticism is directed towards private umbilical cord blood bank procedures. The primary accusation is that, these banks charge their customers a substantial sum to store cord blood and reserve it for future needs within their family use.

This raises ethical questions regarding the price of life and whether such a service should be available only to the few rich and affordable families. Further such a trend towards reserving the cord blood will also reduce the quantity of cord blood available through donations to the public umbilical cord blood bank centers and thus patients in need of cord blood might not be able to get them when required.

According to the proponents of public umbilical cord blood bank centers, this facility and services can become more and more affordable, if the banks offering to store umbilical cord blood widen their services for unrelated donors which will allow more people to donate their children’s umbilical cord blood, which can be stored and later served by the banks for other unrelated people who might be in need.

These public umbilical cord blood bank centers do not charge the umbilical cord blood donors who might not have a need personally for their own children, but who choose to donate for other children’s sake.

Also, these umbilical cord blood banks provide anonymity for the donors and the receivers, which help in retaining the objectivity of the service, in providing the blood to the needy at the correct time.