Yes I know ORh+ is very useful because, as it happens, I do remember my O level biology and all that 'universal donor' / 'universal recipient' guff.
I thought it was ORh- that was the universal stuff, because you can't give Rh+ to an Rh- person.
Or have I got it the wrong way around?
ooh work related question makes a change having been off for a month;
group O can be given to anyone; otherwise you cannot give A to someone who is not A etc (apart from AB who can have anything)
Rh is a bit different (top marks too for calling it Rh not Rhesus the connection between the blood group system and monkeys was disproved decades ago but it persists in terminology)
Rh is one of the most immunogenic of the other systems; nobody is born with antibodies to Rh but if an Rh - person has contact with Rh+ red cells thru either pregnancy (across the placenta) or transfusion they are likely to form anti-Rh antibody (most commonly anti-D but there are 4 other antigens in the system)
anyone still awake?
so if you give Rh+ blood to an Rh- male (or female beyond child bearing age) they may make antibodies which will require them to receive Rh- blood for life; no big deal ( all blood is screened for these antibodies before a transfusion is given and if they are found the appropriate negative donor blood is selected; there are dozens of other systems but they mostly behave just like Rh)
but if it's a woman who then becomes pregnant they will pass the antibody across to the foetus via the placenta; if the foetus is Rh+ (having got the gene from dad; 85% of the UK possess the Rh or D antigen) it can cause jaundice and general bad things even requiring intra uterine (or soon after delivery) transfusion, phototherapy; plasmapheresis of mum to get the antibody level down etc.
so we try to match Rh to Rh whenever possible but big Rh- bleeds who will not have babies go to Rh+ to conserve stocks of Rh-
we would normally only give out O Rh- to a non O Rh- in a dire emergency when we did not know the patient's blood group (usually A/E situations) as it takes about 30 mins to determine blood type and antibody status. We can get the blood group from a blood sample in a couple of minutes if they are gushing.
Rh- to Rh+ is fine (apart from cases of anti-c but you don't wan to know about that)
ps anybody know how long major surgery bars you for? just had my call up and it doesn't say.