Our Processes

With more than 23 years of experience in cryopreservation methods, NECBB offers the experience you can trust in processing and storing your baby’s cord blood. Our state-of-the-art facilities and qualified personnel ensure that your cells are processed and stored under the strictest guidelines.

1. Umbilical Cord Blood Collection: Immediately after your baby’s delivery, the umbilical cord is clamped and the baby separated from the cord.
At this point, the needle attached to the collection bag is inserted into the vein in the umbilical cord. The placental blood/umbilical cord blood, drawn by gravity, then flows into the collection bag. The bag comes equipped with an anti-coagulant to keep the blood from clotting before it reaches our laboratory. The process is non-invasive, painless and generally takes between three and five minutes to complete.

2. Using the Collection Kit: NECBB will supply you with a cord blood collection kit prior to delivery date. You simply bring the kit to the hospital for the physician or midwife to collect the cord blood after you deliver.

3. Shipping Your Kit to NECBB: Once the attending physician or midwife has completed the umbilical blood collection, your sample is picked up at your hospital, either by our local courier or by our Worldwide Shipper and sent to our laboratory in Newton, Massachusetts.
If your blood is coming from a destination outside our local area, our Worldwide Shipper ships via priority overnight to ensure that your blood arrives within 72 hours of delivery. We have entrusted our Worldwide Shipper with our business, and with the shipping of precious cord blood since our company began offering these services. They are the world’s leading shipper of diagnostic specimens.

4. Processing Your Baby’s Cord Blood: At NECBB, every unit of cord blood is unique.
Each unit of cord blood that arrives at our laboratory is given a unique identifying number. Once the stem cells are separated from the blood, they are placed in a multi-chamber cryogenic freezing bag in preparation for freezing and storage. The freezing bag is clearly marked with your baby’s name, date of birth, date of processing, and contents, as well as its unique Cord Blood Number. The bag is then frozen at a computer-controlled rate and are stored in our liquid nitrogen tanks. This process ensures the safety of your baby’s cells because progressively lowering the temperature keeps the cells from going into shock before reaching the storage temperature of -321° Fahrenheit (-196°C). The frozen cord blood stem cells are stored in tanks located in our constantly monitored, secure laboratory facility.

5. Ensuring Cell Viability and Transplant Results: Full cell separation.
NECBB’s cord blood processing technique includes full cell separation, a method designed to optimize viability and usability of your baby’s stem cells. To shield the stem cells from freezing damage, we use DMSO (Dimethyl Sulfoxide), a cryoprotectant which is washed out of the stem cells in the thawing and preparation process prior to transplantation. Research has shown that this methodology is the most successful in terms of cell recovery and ultimately for transplant results.

6. Cryogenic Storage: Ensuring long-term use.
Your baby’s cord blood stem cells are stored in a multi-chamber cryogenic freezing bag. We also set aside three smaller samples, which can be used for Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) type matching should the cells be needed for someone other than your baby. (HLA type matching determines whether a patient has a suitable donor for stem cell transplant.) One-hundred percent of the processed cells are preserved for your family and nothing is withheld for our use, a procedure unique to NECBB.