[The placenta, from a residue to a treasure].

Midwifes are the ones in charge of the procedure to obtain a blood donation from the umbilical cord, a procedure which consists of informing mothers what the advantages and inconveniences of such a donation are, filling out the file for the blood bank, extracting the blood donation, and completing the patient's records for the pediatrician. In Spain, the Spanish Register of Bone Marrow Donors (REDMO in Spanish acronym) is the organization in charge of internal coordination and in conjunction with other countries, the bone marrow and umbilical cord blood donations. Every pregnant woman in good health who does not meet the criteria for being excluded as a donor by the umbilical cord blood banks is considered to be a possible umbilical cord blood donor. Once an umbilical cord blood donation is extracted, the donation is stored, identified, processed and revised so that it can be sent to the blood bank designated for the hospital and, once there, when the opportune moment arrives, to the place where there is a compatible receiver At the present time, the number of donations of umbilical cord blood is increasing; but on the list of reasons to not donate there appears, to a high degree, the lack of knowledge about this type of donation among pregnant women. Therefore, health professionals role to inform pregnant women about umbilical cord blood donations is important.