The donation criteria is different from whole blood donation. To ensure that a safe amount of blood is collected, all blood donations, whether Whole Blood or Apheresis procedures, have a minimum weight requirement. Roughly 220 milliliters of red cells are collected from Whole Blood donors and 360 milliliters of red cells are taken during a 2 unit red cell apheresis donation. To ensure that a 2 unit red cell donor has an adequate amount of red cells to safely participate in the donation procedure, more stringent height, weight, and iron requirements have been defined. While other factors play a part, the total amount of blood we have is primarily determined by our height and weight, also known as body mass.
Gender plays a role as well.
Recent studies with patients undergoing open-heart surgery show that even with similar heights and weights, women have lower blood volumes than men. Therefore, higher height and weight requirements were set for women to compensate for their lower blood volume and to ensure a safe blood donation. The procedure takes about 35 to 40 minutes. Because donors are giving two units of red cells at once, the waiting period between donations is 16 weeks, rather than 8 weeks between whole blood donation, making it ideal for people who cannot donate blood on a frequent basis. Now that the summer season is here and concern about the availability of Type O blood grows, we hope many of our Type O blood donors will try this exciting new program.