How Much Blood Is In the Human Body? Frugal Friday.

Hands. Army. Gravity. How Much Blood Is In the Human Body?

On average, an adult has 1.3 gallons of blood. You can calculate your own since it’s about 8% of your weight.

Diagram of the Human Heart

Women have about about 10 pints and men have about 12 pints of blood (8 pints to a gallon).

When you donate blood, you give one pint at a time. You can donate as often as every two months.

Did Your Parents Used to Donate Blood?

My father told us the story once about when he donated blood in the Army.

The nurse was not very skilled at finding a vein to start drawing blood.

After she had poked him several times, without success, he looked her in the eye and said, “You have one more chance.”

She looked at his pale face, saw that he was about to faint, laid him down and had another nurse draw the blood later.

How Does Blood Move Around In the Body?

Your grandchildren might be interested in how blood moves around inside. Or, maybe they’ve never thought about it, since it just happens automatically.

Here’s a way to get them started thinking about the importance of the heart in pumping blood to all parts of your body.

A Simple Experiment

Have each grandchild, and you do it too, raise one hand straight up in the air and keep the other hand straight down at their sides.

Have them count slowly to 60.

At the end of the count, they can bring their hands down and compare the color.

The one that was in the air should be much lighter than the one that was straight down.

Why?

The Heart As Blood Pump

Gravity helps pull our blood down from our head to our feet.

The rest of the work of circulating our blood falls to the heart, which is pumping it out to our hands and feet and everywhere gravity isn’t taking care of it.

When you disrupt gravity by holding your hand in the air and all you have left is your heart pumping, you can see how important gravity is.

William Harvey, an English physician, was the first to write a comprehensive description of how the heart and circulatory system works in 1628.

Thanks to Bill Nye, The Science Guy, for suggesting this activity.

Have you ever given blood?

Did you ever faint after giving blood?

Do your grandchildren know that you can give blood?

To you and sharing the world with your grandchildren.

Carol Covin, Granny-Guru

Click here to order my book, “Who Gets to Name Grandma? The Wisdom of Mothers and Grandmothers.”

http://newgrandmas.com

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