BLOOD DONATION: AN OVERVIEW

Blood donation is a significant problem for society as blood donated saves lives for people who need it. There’s scarce blood. Active blood donors are in short supply to meet the need for increased blood demand. Donation of blood as a therapeutic practice. Every year, around 80 million units of blood donated worldwide. In particular, access to secure and sufficient amounts of blood and blood products is one of the major problems facing blood safety. Safe supply of blood and blood components is vital to allow hospitals to perform a broad variety of critical care processes.

There is no transformation of good understanding about blood donation procedures in blood donation. To create awareness and opportunities for blood donation, interactive awareness of blood donation should be organized. Hence, the best suggestion is people should come out to donate blood by themselves, then it will so useful for society as well as donors. This is something which acts in favor of blood donation campaigns.

Blood Donation Introduction:

Donation of blood is a vital part of healthcare worldwide. Blood Donation is also blood transfusion which acts as a lifelong and life-saving act. It is also a type of therapeutic phlebotomy. Over one hundred million blood units that donated worldwide each year.

By inserting a large-bore needle (16 G or 18 G) into a peripheral vein, generally within the antecubital fossa, blood donation is most frequently carried out. The veins that are very apparent or on the dorsal of the side is used for people in whom antecubital vein is difficult to locate.

Transfusion blood donation is a crucial step in managing many clinical issues, with anemia and acute blood loss being the two main signs. Blood Donation is a very good way of treating some major health issues at first. Blood that can directly be transfused from donor to recipient without storage or transportation.

This method worked only on a small scale for small numbers of patients as donors and recipients needed to be connected in time and space. There was a time when donor lists were kept of locally available individuals to be called in at any time as needed to donate to patients. At the start of World War I, necessity led to more flexible donation and storage practices being developed.

There was no feasible “on-demand” blood donor for such a large-scale effort. Otherwise, soldiers died of non-fatal injuries primarily due to failure to perform a timely blood transfusion. Concerted attempts to create a manner of storing and transferring blood to satisfy military requirements contributed to several findings.

One was inhabited by bringing citrate to the donated blood. Secondly, glucose has been added to the solution to enable the red blood cells to remain viable for several weeks under refrigerated conditions. Several steps are used to guarantee donor blood gifts are secure and impossible to have negative wellness impacts.

Medical history interview—

Every blood donor is enquired about his past medical records. This helps in the blood transfusion process to ensure if the person is fit to transfer blood or not without any health hazards. Potential donors are questioned if heart, lung, or blood diseases have ever occurred.

The individuals who have heart diseases, problems in a heart valve, whose heartbeats are not normal, who have gone through heart failure, some disease related to the blood vessel and some kind of lung problems should not be allowed to donate blood. The people who are going to donate blood are enquired if they are fit and fine to donate blood on that day.

A potential donor should mention to the donor health historian other severe medical circumstances, which will then assess the eligibility for donation. People who went through seizure are only allowed to donate blood within 1-6 months of the seizure usually.

When a person is healed completely, someone who has been through surgery will not be allowed to go ahead with the blood donation when they have resumed all their works completely.

However, if at the moment of surgery a transfusion was given, the donation is not permitted for one year. The women who carry a child in their womb are stopped from donating blood during their period of conceiving and six weeks later the child is born.

Depending on the state, the minimum era for blood donation is 16 or 17 years. A child who is of 16 years of age has to get a duly signed consent letter from his parents or guardian.

There is no upper age limit for donation in most cases, although in some cases approval from the donor’s doctor is required. Blood donation is not permitted for individuals weighing less than 50 kg (110 pounds).

It is not good if someone who is donating blood weighs a little less because then there is a greater chance of having reactions like, dizziness and fainting after blood donation is done.

Though there is a rare possibility that one is going to face any kind of reaction but it might happen to individuals whose weight is 50 and 54 kg (110 and 119 pounds).

Before donor, patients receive a short physical examination in relation to medical history to inspect for any apparent indications of disease or circumstances that would disqualify them from blood donation.

Before a donation is started there are multiple things that are checked like, the person who is donating, his blood pressure, his pulse, and temperature.

Individuals with fever, high blood pressure (usually above 180/100), heart rate very elevated or very small. A tiny sample of blood is drawn from a finger stick and checked for the number of red cells or blood hemoglobin.

This is performed to guarantee that after donation, the patient is not anemic or probable to become anemic.

Individuals with too low levels of hemoglobin are not allowed to donate blood temporarily. Blood donation removes iron from the body, which can lead to temporary iron deficiency if the iron loss is not replaced before the next donation.

The iron deficiency risk is highest among adolescent donors, premenopausal women, and frequently donating individuals.

Because eating iron-rich foods is not enough to replenish lost iron, many blood organizations recommend that people at increased risk of iron deficiency take approximately 60 days of multivitamin with iron or an iron-only supplement to replace the iron lost through each blood donation.