You may find this to be helpful: https://midwifethinking.com/2011/02/10/cord-blood-collection-confessions-of-a-vampire-midwife/
I would always, always do delayed (otherwise known as optimal) cord clamping rather than donate to a bank. I think maybe it feels nice to think someone else might benefit from your donation and there's nothing bad about that, but the reality is that someone can benefit from that blood - your baby. No sense putting them at risk of anemia and putting their bodies under extra strain in the first few days of life producing so much new blood because they don't have enough just for the sake of being altruistic. It's a nice thought and I think people do donate are well-meaning, but there isn't enough education on how important it is to not cut the cord to early, particularly in settings where hospitals make a lot of money from arranging cord blood donations.
In the article above, she cites a really interesting guideline that newborn babies aren't allowed to have blood draws over 14mls in any 24 hour period. When she was doing cord blood collections, she often collected about 90mls of blood to be banked - that's 90mls of your baby's blood that they are missing, even when they aren't technically supposed to have a draw of over 14ml for safety reasons. That's a lot! Basically, if you wouldn't consent to someone drawing 1/3 of your baby's blood out of their bodies to donate it to a blood bank, you also shouldn't feel comfortable with it coming from the cord or placenta.
And you always can have delayed clamping (unless you are bleeding out and unconscious, which rarely happens in the first 3 minutes after birth anyway, even if it is going to happen). You can have it if baby needs oxygen or resus. In fact, it's better to leave the cord attached if baby isn't breathing right away because they still get all the oxygen they need from the placenta, if you cut the cord, then you cut off their oxygen supply. You can have it even if you don't plan to have a physiological 3rd stage. You don't need the injection right away even if that's your choice. You can wait until the cord empties. You also don't have to do something just because it's some doctor's silly policy. It's your baby. You get to make the rules about what gets done to them and no one has the right to deny you that. You just tell them that's what you're doing and put it in writing in advance. They can't perform any procedure without your consent on you or your baby. So you do what you want!
In my case, I left the cord intact for just over an hour while we waited for the placenta to come away. It didn't, so then we clamped and cut it, and then I had the injection. The placenta came an hour and 25 minutes after birth. No problems and it was really lovely to have that hour to relax and not have people fussing over me. I told the midwives that's what we were doing and it was hands off for an hour, unless there was an emergency, and that's what they did.
I would do it if I could! They do let us donate though!
