| Yes | No |
| Have you EVER | | |
| 35. Been pregnant? | | |
Donors who have been pregnant in the past 6 weeks are deferred, for their own safety, for 6 weeks following the end of pregnancy.
Donors who were pregnant greater than 6 weeks ago may or may not be eligible for certain donation types depending on the blood center's donation policy for preventing transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI) in transfusion recipients. The AABB gives donor centers several options to mitigate the occurrence of TRALI:
- Permit only males or females who have never been pregnant to donate plasma products or whole blood units that will be processed into plasma components or transfused as whole blood.
- Perform HLA antibody testing on all female donors donating plasma or whole blood that will be processed into plasma components or transfused as whole blood.
- Obtain a pregnancy history on donors and perform HLA testing only on those with a prior history of pregnancy. HLA testing does not need to be repeated if the donor has not been pregnant since their last HLA test.
Plasma sourced from HLA-positive donors will be discarded and not entered into the blood supply. The HLA testing must be an FDA-approved method.
For more information on HLA antibodies and their role in TRALI,
click here.
