The Importance of Blood Donation*

This is a collaboration piece.

June 14th is World Blood Donor day, it’s an important day in the calendar as far as awareness days go because blood donation does save lives, and it’s a simple thing a lot of people are able to do. It’s not like being asked to give up a vital organ, when you donate blood, you only give what you can spare. A couple of years ago I learned just how important blood donations are when someone close to me unexpectedly needed a transfusion, it wasn’t something we expected to hear as she was going in for something as routine as having her second child.

Blood transfusions after child birth isn’t something that is talked about enough, even having had a child myself it wasn’t something I was aware of. Although it’s almost 8 years since I was first pregnant, I don’t really remember ever being warned about the possibility of losing so much blood I’d been in need of a transfusion. It’s apparently rare, but it can happen and it did happen to a member of our family. With this being a second pregnancy, after a smooth delivery first time around, everyone was sure this would be the same. But due to some complications, she was left on deaths door and in need of a transfusion. If blood donation wasn’t a thing, she would have died leaving her two children without a mother, and as a parent, this really opened my eyes to the importance of blood donation. Becoming a parent always makes me more aware of what I can do to help other families, unfortunately due to having anaemia on a regular basis, neither myself nor my mum are able to donate, however if you are, you could save lives and that’s definitely something to consider.

When people think about how donated blood is used, they think about people who have lost a lot of blood during an accident and it needs to quickly be replaced, but this isn’t always the case. Blood transfusions are also used to treat illnesses where blood cells are being destroyed by the body or the treatment, in organ transplants to help avoid the body rejecting the organ and even when the body is in shock like with a burn victim. Smart Cells can also give you an insight into blood donation and it’s uses as far as research is concerned. If you think about these as only a few reasons why people need donated blood, you can see why it’s important to keep raising awareness for blood donation. And blood donation is even more important if you have a rarer blood type, or one that can be used for transfusions to multiple blood group types.

If you think you are able to donate blood, you should definitely be looking into it. It’s not just adults who need blood transfusions, but children need them too and although you can’t pick and choose who your blood is going to, isn’t it worth it in the off chance you could save a child’s life? More people can donate than you think;

From someone who could of lost a family member if it wasn’t for a blood transfusion, if you can give blood, please do. The extra you’ll be donating you aren’t going to miss but it could give someone the gift of life, and I can’t think of anything better.