In most countries, expectant parents have two options when it comes to donating cord blood (3): (1) Parents may choose to donate the cord blood to a public cord blood bank at no financial cost. If this option is selected, the public bank will collect, transport, process, test, and store the sample to be used altruistically for any person who is compatible and in need. There are currently more than 803,983 frozen units of cord blood stored in over 134 public banks across 55 countries, and more than 35,000 patients around the world have received cord blood transplants via a public cord bank (4). Alternatively, (2) Parents may pay a fee for a private cord blood bank to collect, process and store the blood for later use by the parents, family member or child. There are an estimated 220 private cord blood banks globally, storing over 5 million samples (5).