Type it! With SBMF at the Elkhart County 4H fair on Friday

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know my blood type. I first donated blood in college and I’m sure I didn’t know my blood type before then, but I guess it didn’t really matter.

Now that I work at South Bend Medical Foundation, it sort of shocks me when a potential donor doesn’t know what type of blood he or she has.

On Friday, July 29^th, South Bend Medical Foundation will be typing blood in the Elkhart General Hospital’s “Healthy Lifestyle Tent” at the Elkhart County 4-H Fair from 9am until 8pm. 

 The blood typing system will require those being screened to have a small pin prick to produce a drop of blood. Once the blood is placed on a special testing paper, the donor will be notified of his or her blood type.

Why is blood type important? There are eight different types of blood including A, A-, B+, B-, AB+, AB-, O+ and O-. The + are read as positive and the – is read as a negative.

Each person has one of these blood types. I have O negative blood which means that I can give blood to anyone else, but I can only receive blood from other O negative donors. But it doesn’t work like that for everyone. My blood type, O-, is the universal donor so everyone can accept it. But recipients with a type of B- can only receive O- and B- blood and can only donate to other B- recipients. It gets a little complicated, but is important because if you need a transfusion and are given the wrong type it could cause huge complications.

So if I’ve caught your curiosity at all, you might be wondering what donor types can give blood to others or receive blood from others, right? Well here goes:

If you have type AB+ blood, you are in luck because you can receive all types of blood. There are only 3.4% of people in the population with this type of blood.

Those with AB- are the rarest blood type with only .6% accounting for the population. People with this type are able to receive blood from AB-, A-, B- and AB- donors and are able to donate to those with AB- and AB+ types.

At the opposite end of the spectrum as far as “popular” blood types is A+. Approximately 37.4% of the United States population has A+ blood type. Many people think that since they are A+ and it isn’t a rare blood type or a universal blood type that they don’t need to donate. However, since it is a very popular blood type, it means that you should donate blood because more people are in need of it! A+ donors can give to AB+ recipients and A+, and can receive blood from those who are A+, O+, A- and O-.

The 6.3% of the population who have A- blood are able to give blood to AB+, AB-, A+ and A- recipients, and are eligible to receive blood from only two types. Know what they are? If you guessed A- and O- then you are correct.

With the second rarest blood type, those in the United States with type B- blood only account for 1.5% of the population. If you have type B- blood, stick close to people with types B- and O- because you can only give and receive these types of blood.

Finally, since we already talked about O- blood, which is the universal donor and can be given to anyone, we’re left with O+.  While O- donors account for 6.6% of the population, O+ donors account for 37.4% of the population with the most common blood type. While O+ can be given to all of the positive types, it can only receive O- and O+ types.

There is a lot to be said for the typing process! Before it was figured out, people had reactions and sometimes died during transfusions.

Join South Bend Medical Foundation on July 29^th at the Healthy Lifestyles tent from 9am until 8pm, on Rotary Blvd at the fairgrounds.