After completing the registration process, SSCB sends the kit inside an additional protective box – white and bearing the SSCB logo.

Once received, the kit must be opened to check its contents (but without opening the aluminium wrap containing the blood collection bag, which must remain sterile). It is also important to check the paper documents and place the ice packs in the freezer (two for summer months, only one in winter).

The kit must be taken to hospital when admitted to deliver the baby (remember to re-insert the ice packs) and given directly to the obstetrics personnel in charge of the blood collection.

After collecting the blood, the delivery room personnel reassembles the kit and hands it back to the parents, who are to keep it in the mother’s hospital room, away from heat sources. There is no need to freeze the ice packs again: the anticoagulant liquid contained in the blood collection bag ensures the cell vitality of the cord blood sample for the time needed for sample retrieval.

When the blood sample is ready (it is necessary to call SSCB to announce the baby’s birth), a dedicated courier will come to hospital to retrieve the kit and bring it to SSCB laboratory facilities.