About one in 83 hospital deliveries requires a lifesaving blood transfusion among the nearly 3.6 million births in the U.S. each year. As Mother’s Day approaches, nonprofit Vitalant urges blood donors to give in honor and celebration of mothers and all those whose emergency or planned medical procedures rely on donated blood.
Blood donation is a cause that’s always been meaningful to Marci Peralto, having become a blood donor as a teenager and a doctor of obstetrics and gynecology as an adult. She’ll celebrate her 10th Mother’s Day since donated blood helped save her life in the minutes following her son Noah’s birth. Peralto suffered hemorrhaging from an amniotic fluid embolism and later woke up in the intensive care unit to learn she received nearly 30 units of blood. Within a week, she was able to leave the hospital and resume her recovery at home with her family.
“I had a new lease on life, a second chance to be these boys’ mom, and be a doctor,” Peralto said. “Blood donors and blood donation allow me to be there for birthdays, first days of school, home runs, gold medals at swim meets, and all of the things that are yet to come.”
As an ob-gyn, Peralto now, more acutely than ever, knows just how important a safe and ready blood supply is.
“I don’t want to ever not have the tools to save my patient’s life.”
To maintain an adequate supply, donors of all blood types are vital, especially type O, which can help the most patients. O-positive can be used for any patient with a positive blood type, and O-negative can help patients of all blood types, which is crucial in emergencies when there’s no time to test the patient’s blood type.
Vitalant needs to continually collect blood and platelet donations from generous, volunteer donors, because a patient needs blood every two seconds and donated blood can’t be stored indefinitely. Red blood cells from a blood donation must be used within 42 days, and platelets – which often help cancer patients – must be transfused within a week.
Learn more and make an appointment to give at vitalant.org, download and use the Vitalant app or call 877-25-VITAL (877-258-4825). As a special thank you, all who give with Vitalant through May 23 will have a chance to win one of 83 $83 gift cards in the Donate for Mothers Giveaway*.
*Donor Rewards program opt-in required. Learn more at vitalant.org/donateformoms.