US State Regulations on Cord Blood

California

California has state legislation around cord blood education that follows the Institute of Medicine guidelines. In 2005, the United States government commissioned the independent Institute of Medicine to study and report on the ideal structure of a national cord blood program. The California law asks (but does not mandate) physicians to educate expectant parents about ALL forms of cord blood banking. The California bill was enacted 26 Sept. 2006 and became effective 26 Sept. 2006. 

More importantly, on 30 Sept. 2010 California passed Assembly Bill 52 to raise funding for a state wide cord blood donation program by raising the cost of birth certificate copies $2 apiece. The bill was a personal passion of sponsor Anthony Portantino, who worked for years to make it a reality. California is a particularly good state for collecting cord blood donations because of its ethnic diversity; in the state capital of Sacramento, 20% of all births are registered as "mixed race". 

Connecticut

Connecticut has state legislation around cord blood education that follows the Institute of Medicine guidelines. In 2005, the United States government commissioned the independent Institute of Medicine to study and report on the ideal structure of a national cord blood program. The Connecticut law mandates/encourages physicians to educate expectant parents about ALL forms of cord blood banking.  The Connecticut bill was enacted 8 July 2009 and became effective 1 July 2009.

Two years later, the Connecticut House of Representatives approved another bill to create a state public bank of cord blood donations. The 2011 State Bill 152 was approved 8 June and signed into Public Act 11-160 on 13 July 2011. The 2011 bill amends the cord blood education provisions of the 2009 bill to create a Connecticut Umbilical Cord Blood Collection Board of 8 appointees to oversee the program. The program would be run jointly by Yale-New Haven Hospital and the University of Connecticut John Dempsey Hospital. The bill gave deadlines of 1 Oct. 2011 to appoint the Collection Board and 1 July 2012 to launch the program. Dr. Frances Verter was a member of this board, but the program never raised enough funding to operate and was eventually disbanded.

Georgia

Georgia has state legislation around cord blood education that follows the Institute of Medicine guidelines and mandates/encourages physicians to educate expectant parents about ALL forms of cord blood banking.  The Georgia bill was enacted 24 May 2007 and became effective 30 June 2009.

Indiana

Indiana House Bill 1172 of 2008 authorizes the Secretary of Human Services to form an Indiana non-profit corporation that will collect cord blood donations, plus donations of other perinatal tissues. The Indiana legislation is very unusual in that it explicitly calls for the collection of "other perinatal tissues". However, the state never formed a non-profit to collect them. Since 2010, the independent non-profit Life Line Stem Cell has been operating in many Indiana hospitals to collect donations of cord blood and birth tissues for distribution to cord blood banks and/or tissue banks.

Indiana Senate Bill 315 of 2016 requires hospitals and obstetricians to disseminate information about donation only of "postnatal fluid" and "postnatal tissue". The Indiana bill was enacted 22 March 2016 and became effective 1 July 2016.

Maryland

Maryland has state legislation around cord blood education that only requires hospitals and obstetricians to distribute information about public donation of cord blood. The Maryland bill was enacted 2 May 2006 and became effective 1 Oct. 2006.  

The Maryland education bill had been sponsored by Maryland State Senator Nancy Jacobs. At the time, no hospitals in Maryland collected cord blood donations. That changed in Fall 2010, when two hospitals in Baltimore began collecting cord blood donations. But there were still no hospitals in Maryland that offered cord blood transplants to adults (except for NIH, where the patients had to participate in a clinical trial). That changed thanks to another bill sponsored by Minority Leader Jacobs and signed into law on 19 May 2011: it would make private funding and grants available to encourage hospitals to offer cord blood transplants to adults.

Michigan

Michigan has state legislation around cord blood education that follows the Institute of Medicine guidelines. In 2005, the United States government commissioned the independent Institute of Medicine to study and report on the ideal structure of a national cord blood program. The Michigan law mandates/encourages physicians to educate expectant parents about ALL forms of cord blood banking. The Michigan bill was enacted 4 Jan. 2007 and becomes effective "upon determination of sufficient funds" for development of educational materials.

New Jersey

New Jersey has state legislation around cord blood education that follows the Institute of Medicine guidelines. In 2005, the United States government commissioned the independent Institute of Medicine to study and report on the ideal structure of a national cord blood program. The New Jersey law mandates/encourages physicians to educate expectant parents about ALL forms of cord blood banking. The New Jersey bill was enacted 7 Jan. 2008 and became effective 7 Apr. 2008.

New Jersey was the first state to have a state wide program of collecting cord blood donations for the public. The history of this program is given in the description of the public cord blood bank Vitalant Clinical Services, formerly known as Community Blood Services.

New York

New York had state legislation around cord blood education that followed the Institute of Medicine guidelines. In 2005, the United States government commissioned the independent Institute of Medicine to study and report on the ideal structure of a national cord blood program. The New York law asked (but did not mandate) physicians to educate expectant parents about ALL forms of cord blood banking. The New York bill was enacted 7 Aug. 2007 and became effective 7 Feb. 2008. This bill was later repealed.

North Dakota

North Dakota does not have any state legislation around cord blood education, but their Dept. of Health has officially adopted the educational materials from Parent's Guide to Cord Blood Foundation. 

Oklahoma

Oklahoma has state legislation around cord blood education that follows the Institute of Medicine guidelines. In 2005, the United States government commissioned the independent Institute of Medicine to study and report on the ideal structure of a national cord blood program. The Oklahoma law mandates/encourages physicians to educate expectant parents about ALL forms of cord blood banking. The Oklahoma bill was enacted 15 May 2008 and became effective 1 July 2008.

Rhode Island

Rhode Island has state legislation around cord blood education that follows the Institute of Medicine guidelines. In 2005, the United States government commissioned the independent Institute of Medicine to study and report on the ideal structure of a national cord blood program. The Rhode Island law mandates/encourages physicians to educate expectant parents about ALL forms of cord blood banking. The Rhode Island bill was enacted 27 June 2008 and became effective 27 June 2008.

Texas

Texas has state legislation around cord blood education that follows the Institute of Medicine guidelines. In 2005, the United States government commissioned the independent Institute of Medicine to study and report on the ideal structure of a national cord blood program. The Texas law mandates/encourages physicians to educate expectant parents about ALL forms of cord blood banking. The Texas Dept. of Health is also tasked to to educate the public about programs that offer free family cord blood storage when the family has an existing medical need. The Texas bill was enacted 18 May 2007 and became effective 1 Jan. 2008.

Washington

Washington has state legislation around cord blood education that follows the Institute of Medicine guidelines. In 2005, the United States government commissioned the independent Institute of Medicine to study and report on the ideal structure of a national cord blood program. The Washington law mandates/encourages physicians to educate expectant parents about ALL forms of cord blood banking. The Washington bill was enacted 18 Mar. 2008 and became effective 1 July 2010.