Tattoos & Blood Donations Video

Tattoos effect your ability to donate blood. Learn the laws for donating blood with tattoos in this free video clip from a blood donation center.

About this Author

Barry Hooker has been working for the American Red Cross for 25 years. Currently, he is the director of recruitment for his region.

We know that in today's time tattoos are just as prevalent as they've ever been, if it's not even growing even more than it was in the past. We're not taking a stance on tattoos or body piercings or anything, but we do have guidelines that we have to follow for certain donors who come in with those situations. Just in the last year or so the American Red Cross has started to accept people that have had tattoos. We use to have to have you wait a year after the tattoo. We don't have to do that anymore if you've done it in certain states. For instance, North Carolina is a state that has licensed tattoo parlors now that are inspected by the state's health department and are found, you know, either to be approved or not approved. If you've had a tattoo in an approved licensed establishment, as long as the healing process is going properly for the tattoo itself, you are eligible now. You don't have to wait that year. That means you can come on in and give and that's good for us because we were losing right many donors to people having tattoos which is, you know, something a lot of folks are doing now. Body piercings are the same. As long as you've had your body piercings done in a licensed establishment, you see that everything is clean and sterile. They have autoclaves, you know, they're using gloves, it's a one time, one use piece of equipment, that's Okay. The way I tell everybody, if you're sitting home on a Saturday night and say, "Hey, I want to poke my ear." That's not good. You have to wait a year after that. But we want you and need you to be honest so that we've got the start of, hopefully, collecting a safe blood product for our patients that are in the hospital that may not be able to fight off any infections that are in that blood that might have come from that Saturday night body piercing you did on yourself or your friend did for you. Just keep that thought if you've had a tattoo in a licensed parlor, check with your local and state authorities to find that out, and let your health professionals know, where you're giving blood, that you've had that and they'll make the determination and hopefully it will be a positive outcome for all of us and you'll be able to give blood.