Answer

Blood Exam

Blood refers to the red fluid that circulates in the body and contains white blood cells, red blood cells, platelets, proteins and other elements. The blood can be termed as the basic medium that do offer an interface within which exchange of materials takes place between the body organs. Various internal body functions depend on the blood to be complete ranging from digestion to excretion.

Therefore there is great need to understand the concept of blood types as well as their computability especially during sensitive medical operations such as blood transfusion and handling expectant mothers. The blood is categorized based on ABO and Rh blood type. In order to understand this, the following basic terms need to be defined.

• Antigen; are proteins or carbohydrates which our immune system can recognize and those not recognized by the body are destroyed by antibodies.
• Antibodies; are attack molecules our immune system makes to protect ourselves against foreign things such as bacteria and viruses.

The ABO blood type is based on the presence or absence of A and B antigens on the surface of the red blood cells. The type A of the blood has only antigen A, the type B of the blood has only antigen B, the AB blood type has both antigen A and B while type O of the blood don’t have both antigen A and B.

At the time the baby would have reached six months after birth, the baby will naturally develop antibodies in plasma which will be against the antigens that its red blood cells lack. For example, a baby with blood A type will develop anti-B antibodies and that with blood B type will develop anti-A antibodies. Therefore if you’re blood A type, you cannot receive blood from blood type B. This is because the anti-B antibodies in blood type A will fight the antigens B from blood type B. The result will be coagulation of the cells, resulting in suffocation and can result in death. This also indicates that only blood types with the same antibodies and antigens are compatible with few exceptions. Rh on the hand is mainly applicable especially during pregnancy. When the mother and the expected child are not of the same Rh factor then it can bring complications if not treated.

Both ABO and Rh combine to create blood types: O+, O-, A+, A-, B+, B-, AB+, and AB-. The table below shows the blood types and how possible is there compatibility (NHS, 2017).