This confusion is gradually increasing even among health practitioners. Most people don't know the difference between blood group O positive and O negative.
But in today's article, I am going to be explaining what blood group is all about and why group O positive blood is not a universal donor.
Earlier before now, many people use to believe that group O positive blood can be transfused to any individual. It is quite unfortunate that even people in this our modern era still have that believe.
Well, I will explain all you need to know today about blood group.
Let's begin.
what is blood group
A blood type (also known as a blood group) is a classification of blood, based on the presence and absence of antibodies and inherited antigenic substances on the surface of red blood cells
This blood group is divided into four different group which are A,B,AB and O
Blood group A simply means the blood with an antigen A while blood group B is a blood with antigen B. This is also applicable to other blood group aside blood group O which has no antigen in it.
Looking at the above explanation, you can see that blood group are different and has different antigen inclined in them. Among all this blood groups. Only group O blood that does not have any antigen.
how to check blood group
Blood group can be checked in any diagnostic center or probably in the hospital where laboratory services are being run.
Like I said earlier, blood has different constituent which includes serum, red cells, plasma and the rest on them.
Blood collected from an individual are termed whole blood. This blood contains antigen in it which can be used for blood typing.
If peradventure this whole blood is spined in a container which does not contain anticoagulant, you will automatically get serum out of it. The major different thing between serum and whole blood is the presence of antigen in whole blood and the presence of antibody in serum.
The whole blood which contains antigen are the ones used for blood grouping while the one that contains serum can be used for other test like widal test and others.
Blood group can checked by putting a drop of whole blood in three different sections on a clean grease free tiles.
A commercially produced antibody A,B and D are added in the three sections of the dropped blood. This is to determine the presence of reaction in any of the column.
Reaction in the group A or B of the sample is an indication of the persons blood group. A reaction in A blood simply means the person is blood group A, while reaction in B is blood group B. When there is reaction in the both A and B means the persons blood group is AB.
A situation where there is no reaction in either of the two means the person blood group is O. Reason being that there is no A and B antigen in the persons blood.
When you must have known the persons blood group, the only thing left is to determine if the person is rhesus negative or rhesus positive. This now we lead us to what we known as Rhesus factor
Rhesus factor
Rhesus factor is a kind of protein found at the surface of the red blood cells. This protein is found mostly at the outside of the red blood cells. We have two kinds of Rhesus which is Rhesus positive and Rhesus negative.
The presence of this protein on the surface of the red cell is regarded as Rhesus positive while the absence of this protein is Rhesus negative.
A person with blood group A can either be Rhesus positive or negative.
At this point I believe you must have understood the difference between Rhesus positive and negative. Let us quickly narrow it down on how it affects blood donation.
Rhesus factors in blood donation
Among the four types of blood group we have, it is being observed that group O is the universal donor we have while group AB is termed the universal recipient.
Most people don't really know the difference between blood group O positive and group O negative when it comes to blood transfusion. I have once heard someone saying that all blood group O is universal donor.
Well, I may not be surprise because most people cannot really tell why it is so.
Blood group O negative is different from group O positive. The presence of Rhesus antigen on the surface of the red cells is what differentiate the positive and the negative type.
Blood group O negative is called the universal donor. The reason is stated as follows.
Looking at the explanation above you can see that the reason why group O negative is regarded as the universal donor is because of the absence of Rhesus antigen.
This is also applicable in a universal recipient person. A person with a blood group AB positive are termed the universal recipient. This is because a person with Rhesus positive can receive blood from any group both negative and positive. This not seen in Rhesus negative patient as a blood transfused to a Rhesus negative person from Rhesus positive can lead to death or serious complication.
in Conclusion
Blood group O is mostly confusing when it comes to the one that are universal donor. Most people don't know the difference.
But in this article, I have taken time to differentiate the two and explain why group O positive is not a universal donor.
Save life by creating awareness on the difference between the two.