Like eye color and hair color, we also inherit our blood type from our parents. Doctors use a few different classification systems to group our blood into types, but ABO system and our Rh status are the most important. Your blood can be type A, B, AB, or O and each one of those types can be either Rh positive or Rh negative, giving eight possible blood types.
Many of us may not even know what type of blood we have so … does it matter? What does having different blood types mean for us?
What does your blood type mean?
According to the Red Cross, someone in the US needs a blood transfusion every two seconds. Your blood type affects how healthcare professionals respond if you should need a blood transfusion. Let's find out why.
The presence (or lack) of A and B antigens on the surface of your red blood cells determines your ABO blood type. An antigen is typically any substance that triggers a response from your immune system, usually an attack to ward off the foreign antigen invader.
Our red blood cells are covered in hundreds of known antigens—like sugars or proteins—that our immune system ignores. These are sometimes called self-antigens. But if our immune system encounters blood antigens it doesn’t recognize, even if they're totally normal blood antigens for somebody else, it could register those antigens as uninvited guests and launch an attack.
Someone with type A blood has only the A antigen on their red blood cells while someone with type B blood has only the B antigen. Those with type AB blood have both and those with type O blood have neither. So not all blood types mix well together.
Anyone can receive O-negative blood no matter what blood type they have.
We call people with O-negative blood the universal donor. Anyone can receive O-negative blood no matter what blood type they have. That is why emergency room doctors always give O-negative blood to trauma patients when there’s not enough time to determine blood type. On the other end, a person with AB-positive blood is known as the universal recipient because if you have AB-positive blood, you’re in luck: should you need a blood transfusion, you can take any blood of any type. But all other pairings are not so universal. People with type O-negative blood, for example, can only receive blood from other type O-negative people. People with type B-positive blood are a little more accepting: they can receive blood from anyone with type O or type B blood, positive or negative.
What does having negative or positive blood mean?
Rh...
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