There are a handful of cool things to know about blood types/labeling so I’ll break this answer into a few parts :D
Blood types:
A blood type is a category of blood labeling recognized by the two distinct proteins that may or may not be on the surface of your blood cells: we’ll call these Protein A and Protein B. There are four blood types depending on if these molecules are present in your blood.
Blood type A: Blood cells contain the “A” molecule
Blood type B: Blood cells contain the “B” molecule
Blood type AB, “universal recipient”: Blood cells contain “A” and “B” molecules
Blood type O, “universal donor”: Neither molecule present
here, have a blood type meme:
Rh factor:
But wait! There’s more. :D
“Rh factor” refers to a certain kind of antigens present or not present on blood cells. If a person has Rh antigens on their erythrocytes, they’re “Rh+”, and if they lack the antigens, they’re “Rh-”.
So basically, blood type depends on whether or not you have certain proteins in your blood cells, and the + and - after your blood type refer to whether or not you have additional special antigens.
Examples:
A person whose blood cells contain Protein A and Rh antigens has a blood type of A+.
A person who has neither A nor B proteins and doesn’t have Rh antigens has a blood type of O-.
^pic: I’m currently taking a Forenscis course and the other day I did an experiment on this topic, which is why I’m writing this answer :3
Donating/receiving blood:
But there’s even more than that! It’s important that, when receiving blood donations, you get the right type of blood, or else your anti-a or anti-b antibodies will attack the new blood and cause the blood to agglutination—clump up—and you’ll probably die.
Lemme explain. A person with type A blood has anti-B antibodies. A person with type B blood has anti-A antibodies. Type AB has no antibodies as it welcomes all blood (so it’s called the “Universal recipient”). Type O blood has anti-a AND anti-b antibodies in their plasma, which means it can donate blood to anybody safely (“universal donor”) but can only accept Type O blood.
That means that if a person with Type A blood gets a Type B donation, the anti-b antibodies attack the B blood, resulting in clumping blood and probably death.
Also, your Rh must match as well. Like, Type A- shouldn’t receive Type A+ blood.
Here’s the chart of what blood types specific blood types can accept blood from safety! :D
Type A: Type A, Type O
Type B: Type B, Type O
Type AB: Type A, Type B, Type AB, Type O
Type O: Type O
Most of the population is either type A or type O, totaling in at around 40% each. Type B is around 15% and Type AB is just 3–5%. Obviously being type AB means you’re in really good shape have you ever lose a ton of blood, but type O means you can donate blood to anyone. So hoping for a certain blood type kind of depends on how selfless you are ;D
Fun fact: it doesn’t actually help to know your blood type! In need of a blood donation, doctors will test your blood no matter what (or just give you O blood) to prevent your possible death if you were wrong—and to keep from being sued and such :3
Alright, that’s all the info on your blood and blood types I’ve got for y’all today! XD I hope you learned something, or at least enjoyed the meme at the start. Thank you.
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