May 15, 2018.
By donating blood throughout his life, James Harrison has helped millions of babies and saved lives. A real feat!
Saving lives in turn
We keep repeating how important blood donations are. The example of this Australian is particularly telling in this regard. For 70 years, James Harrison regularly donated plasma (over a thousand in total). And according to the estimates of the Red Cross, 2.4 million babies could have been saved thanks to him. But where does this immense generosity come from?
When he was 14, in 1953, he underwent lung surgery and doctors explained to him that the success of the operation was made possible by thirteen units of blood that had been transfused to him during the procedure. Overwhelmed by the importance of donating blood, he made a promise to donate blood as regularly as possible to help save lives.
Fight against hemolytic disease
But why is it said that he saved millions of babies? Because James Harrison has a very rare antibody in his plasma: the anti-D antibody that helps newborns not get hemolytic disease. As a rule, this disease develops in fetuses who have a positive blood group and whose mother has a negative blood group (17% of pregnancies).
In this kind of situation, the mother develops antibodies during her pregnancy which attack the red blood cells of the future baby and which end up putting her life in danger. In France, each year, 100,000 pregnant women find themselves in this scenario, obliged to receive a injection of anti-D immunoglobulins. Want to know if you too can save the lives of babies in their mother’s womb? Go to the website of the French blood establishment.
Marine Rondot
Read also: 10 good reasons to donate blood
