What is your type?
There are four general blood types: O, A, B and AB. Within each, blood is then labeled positive or negative. Everyone falls into one of the eight types. To donate blood, it is not necessary to know your blood type. Typing blood is part of the testing and processing done at Indiana Blood Center before donations are sent to hospitals.
Seven days after donating, donors can view their donation history, check their health statistics and learn their blood type by visiting www.DonorPoint.org. Blood type and health statistics are also avilable by calling the Indiana Blood Center donation line at (800) 213-3311.
Is your blood type common?
Every blood donor and each unit of donated blood is needed. No type is more valuable than another.
Do you have a rare blood type?
Beyond the eight blood types, other substances (known as antigens) in blood cells further differentiate blood. For instance, some patients need a more exact match of blood after they make antibodies to one of the other hundreds of substances found on the red blood cells. Antibodies are formed after exposure to another person’s red cells either by transfusion or pregnancy. Generally, a person has rare blood if 1 person in 1,000 either has or lacks similar antigens. A donor is considered very rare if their antigens are either found or missing in less than 1 person in 10,000.
At the Indiana Blood Center, clinical laboratory specialists routinely screen donated blood for these additional substances on the red blood cells. This screening may be in response to a specific patient blood need or through routine large-scale testing of donated blood for future needs. Hospitals and patients in Indiana and around the country rely on us to provide this important service.
Indiana Blood Center participates with national rare donor registries to ensure that we have access to the donors needed to supply the citizens of Indiana with matching blood. Likewise, our very rare donors may be asked to provide blood to save the life of someone in another part of the country or world. In this way, our rare donors will earn someone’s undying gratitude in a very special way.
For more information on blood donation and rare blood types, please visit these web sites:
AABB
American Red Cross
Lifeshare
To schedule an blood donation appointment, call Indiana Blood Center at (800) 632-4722.