DIRECT BLOOD DONATION

Directed donation allows family or friends of a patient to donate blood for scheduled medical treatment. Studies have shown that directly donated blood is no safer than anonymously donated blood. Still, many parents choose this method of donation for their child’s upcoming procedures. You MUST have an order from the surgeon to use directed blood. The medical team should be able to provide you with some direction on where to go to donate directed blood, or call the American Red Cross, Patient Services, @ 1-800-338-8086. They will provide you with information on the nearest donation center and costs involved. The quoted cost in my research has averaged about $75 per adult unit donated.

They will also provide you with timing information, such as how soon the process must be started to have the blood prepared in time for your child’s surgery. According to my research, and again this information will vary from what other families have experienced, it takes four days to process the blood. This includes doing all the testing done on anonymous blood. Blood donated by a blood relative, most specifically mother for child, will also be irradiated to prevent transfusion-associated graft versus host disease.

I recommend that you check with the lab at the hospital where surgery is to take place. Some of the larger hospitals are equipped with an apheresis machine. This process involves removal of whole blood from the donor, and separating the components. One of the separated components is withdrawn, or donated, and the remaining are transfused back into the donor. In 45 minutes my husband was able to donate two adult units of packed red blood cells, while the plasma was returned to his body. The lab at your hospital may also be able to handle the traditional donation process and prepare the blood there, which may help lower the cost by having it coupled with the entire bill.

Pros and Cons of Directed Donation

There is a “significant clerical burden”. It is stated that the increased amount of paperwork, and organization involved in making sure that the directed blood gets to the correct location and the correct time for the use in the surgery of the correct patient leaves room for increased clerical error, and takes a significant amount of manpower and time.

There is an increased cost involved in the directed donation of blood for your child. I spoke about this earlier. It varies with what organization is used, how far you must travel to donate the blood, and how much insurance will cover.

There is also the risk, that in feeling a sense of responsibility to provide blood for a child, a donor may not provide the most truthful information; leaving out information that would ordinarily make them ineligible to donate blood. This didn’t occur to me until I thought back to my husband’s donation appointment. I would like to think I know all there is to know about my husband. But in his interview I stood right there beside him, helping him to answer every question. We even made light of some of the questions, laughing and joking. These questions are very important to the safety of our children. I had completely taken all the confidentiality out of his donation process. If you do choose a family member to donate blood for your child, please keep this in mind. This isn’t the time to judge the morality of their answers, only to encourage complete honesty was very important to my husband. He felt like he was doing something to help his angel.

There are several websites that can provide additional information, as well as the above number to the Red Cross. Please keep in mind that directed donation does not seem to be readily suggested by the medical community. You may need to be prepared to encourage your views. As with every other aspect of our journey, this challenge may also have hurdles

On a Side Note

I have also encountered research on an idea called “minimal exposure transfusion”. This is based on the assumption that decreasing the number of donors will result in a decreased occurrence of transfusion-related infections or complications. I think the idea has some merit, though in my last article I did share with you that there seems to be minimal risk of infection altogether. This may still be an issue to discuss with your medical team when deciding your plan. A single donor can give several units over a period of time, to accomplish this minimal risk.

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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