With hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes occurring in the last month, there is a critical need for blood worldwide.
Blood banks want any type of blood, but specifically, they need type O -. Why is that? There are four major types of blood: A, B, AB, and O. These letters indicate whether your blood contains Antigen A, Antigen B, Antigens A and B, or no antigens. Blood is also classified as whether it has a protein called Rhesus, or Rh, attached to it.
We score this as either positive or negative for Rh factor. Thus, we can have eight distinct blood types: A+, A-, B+, B-, AB+, AB-, O+, and O-. Now for the tricky part. You can’t receive blood that contains either Antigen A or B if you do not already have it inside your blood or receive Rh factor positive donations if you are negative.
For example, a person with A+ blood can receive from the following types: A+, A-, O+, and O-. A person who is A- can only receive A-, and O-. For this reason, AB+ is called the ‘universal recipient’ because it can receive from any blood type but can only donate to AB+. O- is called the universal donor because it can give to any blood type but only receive O-.
When a patient needs blood in an emergency, there is often no time to discern whether or not they have antigens or Rh factor in their blood. Therefore, they call for O- blood to be given to the patient since everyone can receive it. This makes O- blood the most precious to hospitals.
Our blood is made up of four components: red blood cells (for moving oxygen around our body), white blood cells (for fighting infections), platelets (to stop bleeding), and plasma (liquid portion). When you donate, you can choose to either give whole blood or one of the components.
Generally, if you give only a portion of your blood, you are donating the red blood cells which will be mixed with a solution to create more ‘engineered blood’ than you could donate on your own. In either case, the process is simple.
You will be asked a series of questions involving your medical history and social interactions to assure that you are not a high-risk candidate for blood-borne diseases. After this, you will be placed in a chair and a special needle inserted into your vein. This is usually what people hate the most because they still haven’t perfected blood donation by osmosis. After the needle is inserted, your donation will begin and last about 20 minutes.
Donating blood is extremely healthy for your body and encourages the growth of new red blood cells. These red blood cells are replaced by the bone marrow in about 30 days. If you haven’t donated in a while, I ask you to consider restarting the process. If you have never given, find your nearest blood donation office and walk right in.
Because of the disasters 2017 has brought, we have an unprecedented need for blood donation. Please, be someone’s hero and donate the gift of life. Stay safe out there.
