Feasibility of an obstetrician‐based cord blood collection network for unrelated donor umbilical cord blood banking

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of an obstetrician‐based cord blood collection system for the purpose of banking cord blood for unrelated donor hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Over 200 delivering physicians and 40 area obstetrical units were educated and became involved in the collection of cord blood during the third stage of labor. These products compared favorable with those obtained after placental delivery. Issues involved in the development of quality assurance for unrelated donor banking are discussed. An obstetrician‐based cord blood collection network is feasible and advantageous in that cord blood can be collected from a wider variety of communities, thus enhancing the ethnic diversity of a bank. J. Matern.‐Fetal Med. 6:320–323, 1997. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.