Thursday 10-09-2020 - 15:50

Want to play a part in saving someone’s life this Autumn? It’s as simple as giving blood.

 

The Welsh Blood Service will be visiting our Plas Coch Campus on a number of days over the next month and booking an appointment with them to give blood is as easy as following this link.

 

Giving blood will take approximately 5-10 minutes, is low-risk and you will be monitored throughout the process and afterwards to ensure that all is well before you leave.

 

Anyone aged between 17-66, weighing over 50kg and not subject to certain medical exclusions can volunteer to give blood.

 

The Welsh Blood Service is required to supply 350 donations a day in Wales, with each donation able to be broken down into different components such as platelets, red cells and plasma. Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, giving blood has remained an essential part of healthcare and now more than ever, there could be someone that would really benefit from your donation.

 

Answering a few very quick eligibility questions when booking your appointment will help make sure that your blood is suitable to be donated.

 

Your blood could be used in blood transfusions to treat the following:

 

• Anaemia
• Cancer
• Blood disorders (i.e. sickle cell)
• Emergency and nonemergency surgeries
• Blood loss after childbirth

 

 

On a personal note, I absolutely hate needles – they’re one of my biggest phobias alongside spiders – but I’m really determined to try something new. So I’m going to have to be a big girl for ten minutes with the knowledge that saving a life is more important than my fear. Hopefully this will also ease my queasiness around needles in future encounters!  

 

I also really want to know my blood type, which there are four groups of (A, B, AB and O) and donating blood for the first time is a quick and easy way to find out what mine is.

 

Knowing your blood type is beneficial for a number of reasons:

 

• Medical emergencies: Doctors need to know your blood type in order to prevent the use of incompatible blood during surgeries.

 

• Pregnancy: For pregnant women, it’s important to know whether their blood type is positive or negative, as if they have a different blood type to their baby, an injection can be administered to prevent complications from this.

 

• If your blood type is O-negative, then you have blood that is universal and can give blood to any blood type.

 

• Predicting disease risks: Some blood types can carry slightly higher risks of certain diseases such as stomach cancer, heart disease or blood clots.

 

• Improving your diet: There is actually a diet called the Blood Type Diet, and it’s based on claims that the food you eat reacts to your blood type.
  
   
• Banishing those pesky mosquitoes: If you ever find yourself being constantly bitten, it could be because you have a type O blood type. There’s evidence to suggest that mosquitos are up to twice as attracted to this specific blood type in comparison to type A people. If you find that you are type O, you could benefit from being more generous with mosquito repellent!
   

If you’d like to know more about giving blood, then visit the Welsh Blood Service website. 

 

If giving is in your blood, please help. Your most important donation is your first one.

 

 

Written by Lauren Hole, Digital Marketing Assistant

 

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