Mother and child.

The California Umbilical Cord Blood Collection Program (UCBCP), administered by UC Davis Health, is a statewide public program designed to capture the genetic diversity of Californians through the collection of cord blood units for public banking and transplantation. 

The program was created by a state law passed in 2010 that funds public cord blood banking through an additional $2 fee on birth certificate copies.

The collection service is the state's first comprehensive public system for collecting cord blood that is stored at one of our collaborating cord blood banks and available for searching through the national cord blood registry. Mothers are able to donate their newborns' umbilical cord blood at 12 participating hospital collection sites and have it publicly banked so it is available to anyone for lifesaving transplantations, especially when a matched bone marrow donor is not available.

The California UCBCP encourages as many donations as possible so that California's diversity is well-represented in the national inventory of publicly stored cord blood units.

Our mission

The mission of the Umbilical Cord Blood Collection Program is to:

  • serve the people of California through increased collections of cord blood units that are representative of the state’s unique and genetically diverse population
  • store these cord blood units in public cord blood banks that are searchable and accessible to those in need of a transplant, and

  • increase distribution of cord blood units for research purposes.

Vision

The vision for the umbilical cord blood collection program is to expand public access to cord blood stem cells by targeting current inventory shortages, in order to provide greater probabilities that people of any race or ethnicity can find an appropriately matched cord blood unit in the National Registry.

In support of these goals, the UCBCP facilitates collections of high quality cord blood units for transplantation and promotes research and development of effective treatments utilizing cord blood stem cells.