Did you know that we have enough blood in our body to fill almost a 4-liter jug of milk? In fact, it is estimated that the average adult has between 4.5 to 5.5 liters of blood circulating inside their body . Although this amount varies depending on the stage of life in which we are, and our gender. For example, men usually have between 4.25 and 5.67 liters, while women have about 4.25 liters.
However, when we are children we do not have the same amount of blood as in adulthood, especially until we are 5-6 years old. Mainly because children are smaller in size, as their bones, muscles, and organs tend not to weigh as much, their blood makes up a vastly greater percentage of their body weight, compared to adults.
However, newborn babies have between 75 and 80 milliliters of blood for every kilogram of body weight. We can take as an example a newborn baby that weighs between 2.3-3.6 kg. When it is this weight, it will originally only have about 0.2 liters of blood in its entire body, a similar amount of blood that a 4.5 kg cat would have in its body. Dogs, yes, have a little more blood: around 86 ml per kilogram, so that a dog weighing 36 kg has 3 liters of blood.
In the case of children, however, it usually has between 70 and 75 ml of blood for every kilogram of body weight.
Whereas, in the case of pregnant women, to help their developing and growing babies, they have 30 to 50 percent more blood volume than non-pregnant women, which is about 1 to 1, 50 additional liters of blood.
Each time an adult donates blood, about 450 ml of blood is obtained, which contains three basic components: red blood cells, plasma and platelets, in addition to white blood cells. But, although we may want to donate every day, or every week, the truth is that we must have some patience: red blood cells have a useful life of around 120 days, and the bone marrow produces them constantly.
However, their regeneration still takes a long time , hence it is not possible to donate as often. It is necessary to wait for the blood to fully recover, which usually takes about 4 to 6 weeks. Thus, in our country, men can donate up to 4 times a year, and women up to 3 times, with a minimum interval of 2 months between each donation .
In adults, the blood contains about 3 liters of plasma , in addition to red blood cells, platelets, and white blood cells. While electrolytes, vitamins and other nutrients end up dissolving in the blood, and are finally transported both to the cells and to the different organs of the body.
However, the presence of iron , one of the most abundant elements in the blood, stands out mainly, which is extremely essential when it comes to helping red blood cells to maintain their circular shape, enabling the formation of hemoglobin, which is a protein in red blood cells that allows oxygen to be transported to different tissues in the body.
