Bringing it home

Sometime in 2020, O negative donor Steve Bryant learned that his blood was suitable for neonatal patients – newborn babies. Despite his lengthy commitment to saving lives, nothing had quite hit home in the same way before.

Steve's own grandson, Maximus, was born prematurely, and had needed to be given three blood transfusions. For Steve, finding out that his blood could be used to treat newborn babies really brought the reality of blood donation home, as he thought back to a time of dread, heartache, and hospital corridors.

"The sound of the beeps in the neonatal ward will live with me forever," says Steve. "Each one was the sign of a baby fighting for its life.

"My daughter was only allowed to look into the incubator in the first few days. She had to leave him every night. It was hard to watch."

Steve, who now speaks as someone with a place among the few people who have given blood over 100 times, started donating at just 17 years of age.

"I remember my father donating at every session. He never missed any," he says.

"Having served in the Royal Navy during the second world war, the importance of donation would not have been lost on him. As for me, I was frustrated at having to wait until I was 17 before I could follow suit.

"In those days, you just turned up to donate without an appointment. You would lay on low level camp beds. I felt good after I donated, knowing that someone out there was going to have possibly lifesaving blood."

Steve's good feeling was warranted: O negative donors are vital to the NHS. O negative is the 'universal' blood type, meaning it can be given to anyone in an emergency. Only around 8% of the population has O negative blood, but it makes up around 13% of hospital requests.

But Steve is rarer still. His O negative donations are also CMV-negative. CMV-negative means that there was no evidence of cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection when the donor's blood was last tested.

CMV is a very common virus. Around 50 to 60 per cent of adults in the UK have had it, often in childhood, and it can stay in the body for life, meaning donated blood is affected.

It is of no significance to the health of the donor, nor of most patients, but newborn babies whose immune systems are still developing must only be given CMV-negative blood.

Blood from CMV-negative donors is labelled with 'NEO', then tested again to make sure there has been no infection since the last test.

Maximus was brought home after a few weeks. Today, he is happy and healthy and plays youth rugby for Tiverton RFC, where his grandad not only used to play, but now gives blood too.

"I was pleased to reach the 100-donation milestone, but I'm determined to keep donating," says Steve. "The feeling I had finding out that my blood was helping babies in the same circumstance as Maximus is beyond words."

"I always look forward to the text I get after donating to see which children's hospital or neonatal ward my blood has gone to, knowing that some parents and grandparents there are grateful, like us, that their baby stands the best chance."

Find out more about the importance of O negative blood.