CBCO’s Pediatric Donors Help Newborns Like Wyatt

February 2017 — Seven weeks before her baby’s due date, Jamie Matney’s perfect pregnancy took a sudden turn. She awoke at 4:00 a.m., feeling a gush. “I thought my water broke,” she said. But she had suffered a placental abruption, a condition in which the placental lining separates from the uterus.

Wyatt was born via emergency cesarean section at Citizens Memorial Hospital in Bolivar, Missouri. He was then rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit at Cox South Hospital in Springfield, Missouri. “I got to see him for a few moments and they took him away,” she said.

The 3-pound, 10-ounce boy remained in the NICU for four weeks. Three
weeks into his hospital stay, he received a blood transfusion, provided by CBCO donors, to treat anemia, which is a deficiency of red blood cells or of hemoglobin in the blood.

Once Wyatt received the blood transfusion, Jamie saw a difference, with Wyatt’s skin going from being pale to having more color.

Infants like Wyatt, in need of blood transfusions, receive that blood from CBCO’s O-Negative donors, but first that O-Negative blood must be drilled down even more to make sure it does not have certain antibodies. These O-Negative donors must also be CMV-Negative, which puts them in a group that we refer to as pediatric donors.

Another important test this O-Negative blood must pass is Cytomegalovirus (CMV), which is a relatively common virus that is harmless for most healthy children and adults. While 50% to 80% of the population has been infected with CMV, most never realize they have it. However, it is safer for infants to receive blood from donors who test negative for the virus. (Learn more about pediatric donors by clicking HERE.)

Wyatt is now a healthy, energetic 4-year-old and Jamie has been a member of CBCO’s component lab staff for three years. In addition, she has now donated more than two gallons of blood, and she appreciates others who donate blood with CBCO each day.

“When patients need blood, and that blood is readily available to them, it can give families and patients a glimpse of hope because it is thanks to donors that the blood is immediately available,” Jamie said. “This
glimpse of hope and encouragement means the world to recipients and their families who may be going through a stressful time.”

Would you like to help patients like Wyatt? Please click HERE to find out where you can donate blood within the service area of Community Blood Center of the Ozarks, the sole provider of blood, platelets, and plasma to all local hospitals in southwest Missouri and northwest Arkansas.