One of our staff will visit before you leave hospital to take a small blood sample from you (not your baby). They’ll also take you through the full consent form if you didn’t sign it before the birth and ask some routine medical history questions.

Within 30 hours, a courier will take your cord blood to our cord blood bank, the Anthony Nolan Cell Therapy Centre, in Nottingham.

There, we’ll test it to see if it has enough stem cells to use for a transplant. If it does, we’ll freeze and store it until someone needs it.

If it doesn’t, we’ll either dispose of it using standard medical procedures or use it in vital research.

Take a look at our animation all about donating cord blood.