Family Bank: BebéVida

About

BebéVida is authorized by the Portuguese Ministry of Health to offer banking of cord blood stem cells and banking of mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) from umbilical cord tissue. BebéVida was the first cord blood bank in Portugal to be accredited by FACT.

Business Experience

BebéVida was founded in 2004, starting the storage activity in 2005. During 2012 they launched the service of mesenchymal stromal cell (MSC) cryopreservation from umbilical cord matrix/tissue.

Bio-Cord of Spain owns a share of BebéVida since 2018. Bio-Cord invests in research and development of new stem cell technologies and that is why we offer the best and most complete services; with Bio-Cord your baby's cells will be in the best hands. Bio-Cord belongs to the Cerba Internacional group of clinical laboratories in Europe. The group has more than 1.000 employees, performs up to 20,000 clinical analyses per day, and has 75,000 cord blood units in storage after more than a decade in this field.

Collection Kit

Our kit contains everything your doctor will need to collect the cord blood and tissue. 

Transportation container

Our collection kit includes a thermally insulated shipping box that controls the temperature during transportation to our bank.

Shipping Info

Each individual sample of Cord Blood and Cord Tissue is transported by specialized courier in a temperature controlled package. Shipping and processing are in operation 365 days a year.

Processing Method

All the processing is performed in "clean rooms" to ensure maximum sterility of the samples and to prevent contamination. The cord blood is processed using the AutoXpress Platform (AXP®) - a fully automated, closed processing technology.  This is the best processing method because it´s more exhaustive and secure than the manual process. 

Components Stored

Our laboratory separates and stores the cord blood stem cell enriched fraction of the blood via a volume reduction method that reduces red cells and plasma content.

Licensing & Accreditation

BebéVida was the first cord blood bank in Portugal to be accredited by FACT.

Prices

• Payment Plans are available upon request.
• Special prices are possible with some health insurance partners.
• Discounts given for twin pregnancies. 

Additional Services

Services are offered in three tiers:

1. FIRST: Our standard service for storing cord blood stem cells.
2. ADVANCED: First Service + Fragmented umbilical cord tissue. In this option we conserve the blood stem cells as in First service and additionally we conserve the umbilical cord tissue fragmented into small pieces. If therapy with cord tissue cells becomes necessary, treatment will require further laboratory processing to remove the mesenchymal cells from the tissue and culture them to grow the cell number.
3. PROFICIENCY: Advanced Service + Cells isolated from cord tissue. This new service preserves the stem cells of the blood and the mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) of the umbilical cord tissue. The tissue MSC are extracted through a process of enzymatic digestion,  followed by cell culture to grow the cell number. This is the most complete method possible at present. This way we can quantify the tissue cells that have been extracted and will be ready to be used in the future.