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ANONYMOUS BLOOD DONATION
Many families facing craniofacial surgery for their children are also faced with a decision regarding blood transfusion. Families may choose to go with anonymous blood, or to do direct/designated donation. My goal is to give you the numbers and information I found in my research, to try to help if you face this decision!
Blood Centers follow a five layer safety procedure to ensure the safety of anonymous blood: blood donor eligibility standards, individual screening, laboratory testing, confidential exclusion of donations, and donor record checks. Twelve tests are performed on every unit of donated blood, nine for infectious diseases.
- Efforts are made to recruit safe and suitable volunteers.
- Potential donors are asked a series of questions about their health and lifestyle, including direct questions about high-risk sexual behavior.
- The third layer is the testing of potential blood for infectious diseases such as hepatitis, HIV, HTLV-I ( a virus associated with a rare form of leukemia), HTLV-II, and syphilis.
- Potential donors are offered a confidential opportunity to exclude their blood.
- Every donation is checked against existing records. If a potential donor was rejected in the past as indefinitely deferred, their blood will be withdrawn from circulation.
The risk of receiving an HIV positive unit of blood through transfusion is 1 in 676,000. The incidence of allergic reaction to plasma proteins is 1 in 500. According to one center, “Transfusions still tend to cause the development of sensitivity and increase the possibility that the recipient will react to any later transfusions.”
The
information on this website should not be used for medical advice. Medical
or health advice should be provided only by medical or health professionals.
©Craniosynostosis And Positional
Plagiocephaly Support,
Inc.2001