Paula Dayton, donor recruitment coordinator at the UI DeGowin Blood Center, located in University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, talks about the importance of blood donation all year long:

Why are blood donations typically down this time of the year?

Blood donations tend to be low this time of year because of the very reasons you might think. One is post-holiday blahs; another is cold and flu season, you know you add in this terrible weather we've been having, which is responsible for canceled and postponed blood drives and appointments at the Blood Center; and finally, the University's not in session until next Tuesday, so that sort of compounds the problem for us here.

People may not think the weather has anything to do with the blood supply. How does an icy/cold winter affect blood donors and the need for blood?

Like I mentioned, the weather, snowy conditions, make travel hazardous and cause blood drives to cancel or postpone, and people cancel or postpone their appointments here in the Blood Center, too. And sometimes just when it gets really, really cold, that can keep people from coming in and donating. Get a couple of days of weather like that and you can have a major effect on our ability to keep up with the blood supply. The need for the blood doesn't decrease during the bad weather; in fact, with icy roads and sidewalks, there's an increased risk for injury and car accidents. Not all of those injuries are going to require a blood transfusion, but if you have an accident victim who has some severe organ injuries, that person can use a very large amount of blood and very quickly. We've had some trauma victims who've used 50 to 100 pints of blood, and sometimes even more.

When people donate blood, how much blood is gathered?

When people donate blood, it's about a pint of blood that they donate. So you can see one trauma can use blood donated by 100 different people. If you come in to donate at the blood center, you can also donate by an automated donation, so the beauty of that is you could donate red cells, platelets, and plasma—depending on certain parameters—and the amount of these blood products that people can donate is really very carefully calculated and it's based on the individual's blood counts and their body size.

What happens to the blood once the donation process is completed?

Whole blood goes to the Blood Bank and it's separated into red cells and plasma. The red cells can be stored for 42 days; plasma for a year; and then platelets, which we collect only by automated donation in our blood center, only last five days. Once the donation process is complete, the blood goes into the Blood Bank (and this is all at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics), it's in a wait status until all the infectious disease testing has been performed, and once it's determined that that's OK, then it's available to be transfused to patients as requests come from the physicians. Then when a request comes in, a compatibility testing is performed to make sure that it's OK for the patient to receive that blood; then it goes to the floors, the OR, Emergency Room, wherever it's needed for the patients. In an emergency, when there's no time to type that patient's blood, the patient is given O negative red cells because O negative is the universal red cell donor. And if the patient requires plasma, they receive AB plasma because the AB plasma is the universal plasma donor. Universal meaning that it can just be given to any patient.

Tell us about the need for blood at the DeGowin Blood Center and why that need is even greater because UI Hospitals and Clinics is considered a specialized center.

Because the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics takes care of really critically ill patients because it's a tertiary care center, and it's a regional referral center and the procedures performed here can require a lot of blood products. The biggest potential users are ECMO patients and over time these patients can use as many as 200 blood products. Solid organ transplants are another big potential user; bone marrow transplants; traumas. You know we already talked about how many pints of blood a car accident victim could use. But there's lots of other types of trauma seen at the hospital. Some require no blood, some a little blood, and a large amount. But if you need the blood, it's critical to the patient's survival and it's immediate need, not one that's going to wait for a couple of days until you have a chance to collect a little more blood—it's got to be there and tested and ready to go at a moment's notice.

So tell us again, who can donate and how can they register to donate?

If you are 17 years of age or older, you can donate. You can actually donate if you're 16, but you need a DeGowin-approved consent form signed by a legal guardian. There's no upper age limit, so basic requirements are if you are in good health, cold and flu symptom-free for five days, you are eligible to donate. If you have any specific questions about your eligibility, you can always call the DeGowin Blood Center and speak with the nurse, our number is 356-2058. If you prefer to give at one of our blood drives around the community, you can sign up online for this by going to our Web page, and that's at www.uihealthcare.com/bloodcenter.

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UI DeGowin Blood Center