Blood Donation Procedure

Blood donation is a noble act, but not everybody is aware about the facts and misconceptions associated with this noble act. Surprisingly, not many people may be aware that blood donation is of many types and there are two major methods of obtaining blood from the donor.

One of the two methods is take the blood from the vein as whole blood and it is then separated into plasma and RBC – red blood cells, as the transfusions need only specific components for the recipients. The usual donation of blood is a pint (around 450 milliliters). Another alternative is to draw blood from the donor and separate it by using a filter or centrifuge and return it back after keeping the desired part. This procedure, which many may be unaware of, is called apheresis,common for plasma and platelets and it is done with a special machine designed for the purpose.

Direct transfusions may take the blood from the artery, and so, the blood is not stored but transfused directly from the donor to the recipient. It is an old method and rarely used now. It was outdated during WW II when logistics were a problem and the doctors set up blood banks for the same purpose.

The procedure of blood donation starts by determining the blood vessel from where the blood will be drawn and cleaning the skin over it with an antiseptic to prevent the contamination of collected blood by skin bacteria and prevent infections at the skin site where the needle is injected. After the needle is injected, the donor may be told to hold an object and squeeze it or a tourniquet is wrapped around the arm, so increase the blood flow through the veins by increasing pressure of blood in the arm veins.

The whole blood donated by the donor is collected in the plastic bags that contain phosphate or sodium citrate which avoids the blood to clot and acts as preservatives during storage and while processing, other chemicals may be added. The whole blood plasma is used for plasma transfusions or for other medications.

The process of apheresis needs a larger needle for the process as compared to the whole blood and the apparatus used separates the plasma and RBC from blood. Usually, red blood cells are returned to the donors as it takes much time to replace in the body. This method helps to donate plasma or platelets regularly. Even in whole blood, we can separate platelets, but they must be pooled from multiple donations. This is called plateletpheresis and it provides at least one full dose from each
donation.

Like plateletpheresis, there is also plasmapheresis which is used to collect plasma which helps in manufacturing medications. Plasma collected at the same time as plateletpheresis is also known as concurrent plasma. Aspheresis has also been used to collect more RBCs in single donation and to collect WBCs – white blood cells for transfusion.

One should be aware of such information regarding Blood Donation procedures. One can also obtain this information with the help of online doctors.