The main concern of cord blood banking, private or public, is the long-term viability of cryogenically frozen cord blood, although studies have shown that the cord blood can be cryogenically frozen indefinitely.

Other established treatments may be more suitable for the patient, rather than cord blood transplants, and it may become possible to obtain the needed blood or more generalized stem cells by other means, such as from the bloodstream of an adult or from tissue culture.