Digital donor service of the DRK blood donation services

Any f
Rhineland-Palatinate –

I fully agree with what has already been written here. However, I would like to throw in the room again that the reason for the hysterectomy for the blood donation could be a permanent knockout criterion. It wasn’t your question, but it could be important for your planning.

Helmut S
Bayern –

Hello Sandra,

no, you are not allowed to donate more often.

The reason why women are not allowed to donate blood as often as men is that women could develop iron deficiency or anemia more quickly because:

1. Men have more blood in their body, namely 6-7 liters, women only 5-6 liters

2. Men have larger livers than women and can therefore store more iron in the form of ferritin

3. Men have more muscle than women, and therefore more myoglobin (an iron-containing protein similar to hemoglobin)

4. Men have larger bones, and therefore more bone marrow, which is part of the erythropoietic system, and can therefore produce new blood more quickly.

This has very little to do with menstrual bleeding. The amount that women lose each year is roughly equivalent to a blood donation. However, this loss of iron is compensated by a slightly higher daily iron intake. (men ~ 1mg/day, women ~ 2mg/day)

Andrea-Esther C
Bayern –

As long as you are a woman, it will remain at four donations per year.

On average, a woman loses less than an espresso cupful of blood during her period – that’s less than half a liter per year. But women have – again on average – less body mass, less muscle mass, less blood volume, less blood-forming bone marrow, less iron stores than men, and a hysterectomy doesn’t change anything about that. And even if a woman has gone through the menopause, it stays that way… to protect women’s health, they are only allowed to donate blood four times in 365 days.