State legislation and more public awareness has increased interest by new parents in draining and storing stem-cell-rich blood from their newborn's umbilical cord and placenta. That has been a boon for the blood-storage industry and for private companies, such as Cord Blood Registry, which operates the nation's largest private cord-blood bank.

San Bruno, Calif.-based CBR launched operations more than a decade ago, when few knew of cord blood's potential health care uses. Today, the company has about 500,000 blood packets at its nondescript, 80,000-square-foot building near the Tucson airport.

And the company expects to collect even more blood, thanks in part to aggressive marketing and new state laws that require doctors to inform parents about the process at or before birth.

"There are 4 million births in the U.S. alone, and about 3.8 million (cord-blood units) are thrown in the trash after birth. It is simply discarded as medical waste," said Tom Moore, CBR founder and CEO.

Cord blood is a rich source of stem cells, which form red blood cells, disease-fighting white blood cells and blood-clotting platelets. The cells can be used to treat blood and immune disorders and leukemia and some other cancers.

CBR's sales pitch is that it captures pristine stem cells as an insurance policy of sorts against the possibility that a child or its sibling is stricken with a blood disease. Storage is also a bet that one day medicine will allow the growth of a heart, liver or other organs from a newborn's stem cells.

As parents learn about blood storage, more are willing to do it, Moore said. The company charges about $2,000 for collecting, shipping and processing the blood and an annual bill of $125 for storage.

Yet critics of the practice say that banked blood is too expensive, and they are not convinced that private cord-blood storage is necessary. They say it is rarely used by a newborn or a family member unless there is a sibling history of cancer or another disease.

"The merits of private banking really haven't been proven," said Mary Halet, manager of cord-blood operations for the Minneapolis-based National Marrow Donor Program's Center for Cord Blood, a registry of public blood banks that matches donors with patients. "There are families who have the resources and will pay for this. The odds of the (stored blood) ever being used are very slim."

Arizona and California, however, are among states that have passed or are considering laws related to donation and storage options.

Arizona's law, which will take effect in January, requires doctors to ask parents whether they want to store, donate or discard cord blood.

Mesa, Ariz., resident Susan Jarvis-Orr is among those who believe more parents should privately store cord blood or donate it to a public bank. She credits cord blood stored at CBR after the birth of her third son, Devyn, with saving the life of her first son, Brandyn

Brandyn received a cord-blood transplant in 1999 after a particularly rough stretch of chemotherapy to treat his leukemia. The radiation destroyed cancer and stem cells alike, so Brandyn's transplant of stored stem cells allowed him to replenish his blood supply.

Brandyn, now 13, is a healthy boy who captured a Young Hero award from the Fire Department for performing the Heimlich maneuver on a choking woman.

"Many people don't realize how important this is," Jarvis-Orr said. "You can save someone's life."

Because of the politically charged environment surrounding stem cells, the company has taken extra measures to secure its Tucson facility. Bulletproof glass protects the office, and backup power systems ensure that vials of blood will remain frozen in the event of a blackout.

Moore said the security is necessary, in part, because people may mistakenly believe the company deals with controversial embryonic stem cells, the kind collected from a human embryo. That's not the case: Stem cells from newborns do not involve embryos of any kind.

"We keep a very low profile. You can't find us in the telephone book," Moore said.

Cord Blood's customers tend to be wealthy. Moore estimates it stores blood for about 40% of children born in the 90210 ZIP code of Beverly Hills. He declined, however, to name any customers

Moore emphasized that the company has working-class customers, too.

Despite criticism of banking blood, for Jarvis-Orr it's a no-brainer. "It is wonderful. A lot of people just don't realize what it does."