You are Vitally Important to Patients

Blood transfusions help patients in need, and they are especially critical for women who experience pregnancy-related complications. Every day, Vitalant needs to collect about 5,300 blood, platelet and plasma donations, delivering lifesaving blood products to patients in hospitals coast-to-coast.

Mothers have a vital role in life, and blood donors do too.

Kristin was asleep in bed in the middle of the night when her water broke. Several minutes later she started having a seizure and losing blood. Her husband called the paramedics, and she was rushed to the hospital where she needed an emergency C-section. She suffered from a rare but life-threatening pregnancy complication called an Amniotic Fluid Embolism, and she needed 26 blood transfusions to save her life. When Kristin woke up in the ICU 48 hour later, the first thing she said to her husband was “why are all of these people in our bedroom?” 
 
“I’m just grateful for every moment that I get to be here,” Kristin said. “There are so many people to thank. The paramedics, my husband for calling 911, the doctor that was on-call, but I truly would not be here today if it weren’t for blood donors. I had a massive hemorrhage where I was bleeding out and I would not be alive if those 26 units had not been on the shelf when I arrived at the hospital.” Pregnancy complications like Kristin’s are why we Donate for Mothers. 

Schedule a blood donation  in honor of mothers, and you can help vulnerable patients--and moms--who depend on blood transfusions.