Free Cord Blood Programs for Families in Need

In 2005, Congress passed the Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Act, initiating the federally supported National Cord Blood Inventory (NCBI) program to increase the number of publicly available cord blood units for transplant. The law initially aimed to build an inventory of roughly 150,000 high-quality, diverse cord blood units to improve the likelihood of finding matches for patients in need. Today, the NCBI continues to contract with public cord blood banks across the United States, collecting and maintaining tens of thousands of units and making them searchable through the national registry for patients and physicians.

The purpose of this act was to make it possible to match unrelated stem cells to more than 90% of patients in need. Passage of this act was a clear indication of the U.S. government’s support of public cord blood banking practices.

Also, transplants using stem cells from a family member have a higher likelihood of being a suitable match and can eliminate the need to search for a suitable donor within public registries. Research shows that cord blood transplants using genetically related stem cells result in more than double the survival rate over using unrelated cord blood stem cells from a public bank (63% vs. 29%) and significantly lower instances of GVHD, a serious and potentially fatal transplant complication.

For this reason, there are three free cord blood programs that were established for families in need within the United States. Two are sponsored by private cord blood banks and the third is federally funded. The programs are presented below.

Free Cord Blood Programs for Families in Need in the U.S.

Several programs exist in the U.S. that provide free cord blood collection and storage for qualifying families with medical indications:

1. Newborn Possibilities Program® (Supported by Cord Blood Registry®) – Through Cord Blood Registry (part of CooperSurgical), this program offers free cord blood and cord tissue processing and storage for five years for families who have a qualifying medical need, such as a full sibling or parent diagnosed with a condition treatable with stem cells or a baby with a health condition identified prenatally or at birth. More than 11,000 families had enrolled in this program by 2023.

2. Sibling Connection Program (Supported by ViaCord) – ViaCord operates a free Sibling Connection Program that provides high-quality cord blood collection, processing, and lifelong storage (up to ~78 years depending on terms) to expectant parents whose family has a child with an established diagnosis currently treatable with a sibling cord blood transplant.

3. Sibling Donor Cord Blood Program (Supported by Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute) – In partnership with the national Sibling Donor Cord Blood Program, this initiative coordinates free cord blood banking services for families throughout the U.S. when there is a specific medical indication for banking a newborn’s cord blood for a sibling. The program’s services are typically supported through nonprofit channels and clinical partnerships.

To be eligible for these programs, a family must:

•  Provide primary care for a child with a disease considered to be treatable by allogeneic stem cell transplantation
•  Have the support of an attending physician
• Anticipate the birth of a full biological sibling

If you do not qualify for one of the programs above, the Be The Match website has a list of participating hospitals spread across many different states where you can donate cord blood.

To learn about this rapidly expanding market, view the market report “The Global Cord Blood and Tissue Banking Industry Report – Market Size, Segmentation, & Forecasts.”