Blood sample vial near pregnant belly to depict mother’s health check.
Every day across India, women die from causes that blood transfusion can prevent.
Not from diseases that are untreatable. Not from conditions that require specialist care unavailable in the region. They die from bleeding — the most common cause of maternal death globally, and the one most directly dependent on an available, safe blood supply.
India's obstetrics and gynaecology sector accounts for approximately 3.3 million units of blood annually — 22.4% of the nation's entire blood requirement. This makes obstetric and gynaecological care the third largest consumer of India's blood supply, after internal medicine and surgery.
Behind each of those 3.3 million units is a woman — a mother, a daughter, a wife — whose survival depended on blood being available at the right hospital at the right moment.
Behind each of those units is a voluntary donor who gave blood weeks or months earlier, without knowing whose life it would save.
India's national blood demand study breaks down the 3.3 million obstetric units into specific clinical categories:
Anaemia in pregnancy — 34.2% of obstetric demand (1.1 million units)
India has among the world's highest rates of anaemia in pregnant women — estimated at 45–58% of all pregnant women depending on the survey and region. Severe anaemia (haemoglobin below 7 g/dL) during pregnancy is associated with:
When a severely anaemic pregnant woman reaches a hospital, she may need a blood transfusion before delivery to bring her haemoglobin to a safer level. This pre-delivery transfusion is what allows her to survive the blood loss of labour and childbirth.
Postpartum haemorrhage and other pregnancy complications — 25.2% of obstetric demand (0.8 million units)
Postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) — excessive bleeding after childbirth — is the leading single cause of maternal death globally, and is responsible for approximately 38% of all maternal deaths in India according to Sample Registration Survey data. India's maternal mortality, while improving, remains one of the world's highest in absolute numbers given the country's population.
PPH is clinically defined as blood loss exceeding 500 ml after vaginal delivery or 1,000 ml after caesarean section. Severe PPH — where blood loss is 1,000–2,000+ ml — requires immediate blood transfusion. In facilities without blood available, severe PPH is frequently fatal.
Other pregnancy-related complications consuming blood include:
India's caesarean section rate has risen dramatically, reaching 21.5% nationally (NFHS-5) and much higher in private hospitals. Surgical delivery requires blood preparation — a haemoglobin check and blood group typing before surgery, with units reserved for use if bleeding exceeds expectations.
Cervical, ovarian, endometrial, and vulvar cancers — all treated with surgery, chemotherapy, or both — create significant blood demand within the gynaecology specialty.
India accounts for approximately 20% of global maternal deaths — a figure deeply out of proportion to its share of global deliveries. The causes are well-documented: haemorrhage, hypertensive disorders, infections, and obstructed labour.
Of these, haemorrhage is the most directly blood-supply dependent. A woman bleeding after delivery in a hospital with blood available and staff trained to transfuse it can survive. A woman in the same clinical situation in a hospital without blood — or in a village 300 km from the nearest blood bank — does not.
A PMC study on blood transfusion services in Maharashtra and Gujarat noted starkly: each year up to 150,000 pregnancy-related deaths globally could be avoided through access to safe blood. Blood transfusion is identified as one of eight key life-saving functions that must be available at any facility providing comprehensive emergency obstetric care.
The reality in India: most primary health centres (PHCs) — the facilities closest to rural populations where most deliveries occur — do not have blood storage capability. Over 80% of India's PHCs lack blood transfusion services. A woman haemorrhaging after delivery at a PHC must be transferred to a district hospital or higher — a journey that takes time she may not have.
The interim solution that Indian healthcare workers have used for decades when blood banks are distant is described with uncomfortable clarity in an IndiasSpend report: 30 years ago, doctors in rural UP would "line up villagers and bleed them, cross match, test for infections and give blood" for PPH cases — an illegal and unsafe practice that has largely disappeared but illustrates the desperation that blood unavailability creates in emergency obstetric situations.
Voluntary blood donation improves maternal health outcomes in two distinct ways:
1. Safer blood for mothers:
The Max Healthcare NAT study found that 98.68% of infectious blood units came from replacement donors — not voluntary ones. A mother receiving a transfusion for PPH is much safer if the blood comes from a screened, voluntary donor than from a replacement donor recruited in the hospital corridor under pressure.
Postpartum haemorrhage is unpredictable. A delivery that appears low-risk can turn into a haemorrhage emergency within minutes. The blood bank must have units in stock before the emergency begins — not collected after it starts.
This means that voluntary donors who gave blood 2–3 weeks before a woman's PPH emergency are, quite literally, the reason she survives. The blood was in the refrigerator waiting for the emergency that happened to come.
Replacement donation cannot serve this function — you cannot ask a family to "arrange donors" when the patient is actively bleeding in the operating theatre.
Packed Red Blood Cells (PRBCs): The primary component for treating haemorrhage. Restores oxygen-carrying capacity lost through bleeding.
Fresh Frozen Plasma (FFP): Essential in massive haemorrhage, where blood loss depletes clotting factors as well as red cells. A woman bleeding at very high rates develops coagulopathy (inability to clot) — FFP replaces the clotting factors needed to stop the bleeding.
Platelets: Used in severe PPH complicated by disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) — a coagulopathy where clotting factors and platelets are consumed simultaneously.
O-negative PRBCs: Kept in emergency stock for immediate use in PPH emergencies when there is no time to type the patient's blood — particularly useful in transfer situations where the patient arrives bleeding without prior blood typing.
Approximately 6–8% of Indian women are Rh-negative. For these women, blood type compatibility in transfusion is critical not only for immediate safety but for future pregnancies.
An Rh-negative woman who receives Rh-positive blood (even accidentally) develops antibodies against Rh-positive red blood cells. In a subsequent pregnancy with an Rh-positive baby, these antibodies cross the placenta and attack the foetal blood cells — causing haemolytic disease of the newborn (HDN).
Blood banks prioritise giving Rh-negative blood to Rh-negative women of childbearing age. This means that Rh-negative blood donors — particularly O-negative women — provide blood with double value: immediate emergency utility and protection of future pregnancies.
Because women are under-represented in India's voluntary donor pool (only 6% of donors are female), men's blood donations are disproportionately important for obstetric care. The blood that saves a mother during PPH comes, in the vast majority of cases in India, from a male donor.
This is not a problem to be solved through guilt — it is a fact that motivates. Male blood donors in India are, in a very direct sense, part of the safety net that keeps mothers alive during childbirth. Every man who donates every 90 days contributes to a blood banking system that protects the women in his community during their most vulnerable moments.
AB blood type plasma is universally compatible — it can be given to any patient regardless of their blood type. In massive obstetric haemorrhage, when there is no time to type the patient's plasma compatibility, AB FFP is the emergency first choice.
AB blood type donors who give whole blood, or who donate plasma specifically through apheresis, provide the most versatile blood product available for obstetric emergencies.
Register on TheBloodApp today. Donate every 90 days. Know that your blood may go to a mother bleeding after childbirth, to a severely anaemic pregnant woman before delivery, to a woman in an obstetric emergency at 3 am in a government hospital anywhere in India. Your blood has a specific destination, even if you never know where it goes. To find donation camps and blood banks near you, call the number listed in the app.
Sources: PLOS ONE — National Blood Demand Study India | PMC — Blood Transfusion Services Maharashtra Gujarat | PMC — Patient Blood Management Pregnancy 2023 | IndiasSpend — Is India Blood-Sufficient 2026 | WHO India Blood Safety 2024 | FOGSI — Maternal Haemorrhage India | Sample Registration Survey — Maternal Deaths India
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