The Beautiful Letdown

A breastfeeding blog that dabbles in tandem, extended nursing, gentle parenting and much more

What Happens When You Donate Blood

November18

Since I get quite a few searches about donat­ing blood while breast­feed­ing, I thought maybe I would talk a lit­tle more about blood dona­tion. I’ve already writ­ten about whether or not blood dona­tion is okay while breast­feed­ing (for most peo­ple, it’s just fine) and why I donate blood. Tonight, I thought I would write a lit­tle bit for those peo­ple who haven’t donated before and don’t know what to expect.

I know that nee­dles and blood tend to make some peo­ple ner­vous. Also, the unknown can make peo­ple wor­ried. Because I believe that donat­ing blood is very impor­tant, I thought I’d try to take away a few wor­ries for a few peo­ple. Here’s what hap­pens when I go to donate blood. First, I check in with the lady who greets me at the front desk. Then, she gives me some infor­ma­tion to read. Then, when they call my name, I go sit in a cubi­cle with one of the peo­ple who draws the blood. She took my tem­per­a­ture, my blood pres­sure, and pricked my fin­ger. She sticks a cou­ple of drops of blood from my fin­ger prick into a machine. This machine checks your blood for iron. Some­times, women find out that it’s hard to keep their iron count up high enough to donate.

Then, the ques­tions. :-) Next, there are about 50ish ques­tions about any sort of ill­ness, risky behav­ior, surg­eries, or other issues that might pre­vent a per­son from being eli­gi­ble to donate blood. They used to read all the ques­tions and ask them ver­bally, but now they are all printed on a paper and I just read them on my own.

Now comes the time for the comfy chair. I tend to have bet­ter veins in my right arm, so I just go straight to that one. In order to take your blood, your arm has to be very well cleaned. First, they use an alco­hol wipe. Then, they use iodine. Then, comes the prick. Gen­er­ally, for me, that’s all it is. It’s a prick and a lit­tle bit of aching. I usu­ally get some sort of foam ball to squeeze. I tend to be a slow dona­tor, so when Jason and I go at the same time, he donates blood about 5 min­utes faster than I do.

After that’s all done, they put a band aid on your arm and feed you! Our blood dona­tion cen­ter has juice, donuts, pop­corn, and gra­nola bars. Also, if you like the snacks A LOT (like I do), if you sched­ule your dona­tion at the end of the day, they some­times offer you two snacks. :-)

So, there you have it. It’s not quite as easy as “one-two-three,” but it’s def­i­nitely not as big of a deal or as scary as I’ve heard some peo­ple make it out to be.

posted under blood donation
4 Comments to

“What Happens When You Donate Blood”

  1. On November 19th, 2008 at 11:11 am Shannon Says:

    What hap­pens if you get part way through and freak out and/or pass out? Assum­ing my iron is high enough (which I highly doubt) I would like to try but I am para­noid that I would have a panic attack or some­thing. Sounds silly I know…

  2. On November 19th, 2008 at 11:57 am Casey Says:

    I can’t say for sure, because I’ve never had either of those hap­pen. I do think that get­ting light headed and even pass­ing out has prob­a­bly hap­pened to quite a few peo­ple. I would guess that they are trained to han­dle it if that does hap­pen. The chairs that you sit in are like big comfy bed-chairs. :-) They are very soft and they have your legs up a lit­tle ele­vated. I think that they can even lay back more if you start feel­ing light headed. Every time I’ve gone, the woman tak­ing my blood has asked me at least 4 or 5 times, “How are you feel­ing?” I’m usu­ally feel­ing fine, but it’s nice to know that she’s pay­ing atten­tion and there in case I need her.

    As far as iron goes, you can eat things like raisin bran and that will help you keep your iron up, too. It doesn’t have to be only meat. When I had low iron, I added a bowl of cereal to my break­fast menu every day, and that brought it right up.

  3. On December 10th, 2008 at 3:49 pm Brandy Says:

    I was a first time donor today, i loved it.
    I was a bit ner­vous at first i was defintly ok.
    I guy checked my vane and told me it was large and i would have absoloutly no prob­lem.
    My friend was with me and he did get light headed and almost passed out they immidetly pulled it out of his arm, gave him ice and his juice and i had to keep mak­ing sure he was alright.
    I cant wait until i get the chance to donate again =)

  4. On March 16th, 2010 at 8:24 pm Travis Says:

    Well, I donated blood today at our schools Blood Drive. This sounds exactly like what hap­pened at school. About the faint­ing, some peo­ple with low iron may feel light headed after donat­ing. We had mats at school. They told the ones that felt light headed to lie down on their back and ele­vate their feet. They also had fans at the mats to keep every­one cooled down.