Donations are stored in the cord blood bank until used for a transplant. The cord blood bank stores units at very low temperatures in freezers containing liquid nitrogen. The exact length of time that a unit can be stored is unknown because this field of transplantation is still new. Hundreds of searches are conducted daily for bone marrow donors for men, women, and children for life saving stem cell treatments. Many of these patients aren’t able to find a marrow donor and could be saved if there were only more units in a public cord blood bank that might serve as a match. You can help change this by donating your umbilical stem cells to a public cord blood bank if available in your area.