Does blood ever expire when you donate to the Red Cross?

Yes blood expires. Whole blood lasts ~6 weeks, but many blood products have a shorter shelf life. For example, the platelets that I donate have a shelf life of only 5 days. read more

For a whole blood donation, about 1 pint of blood is collected; several small test tubes of blood are also collected for testing. Your donation, test tubes and your donor record are labeled with an identical bar code label. Your donation is kept on ice before being taken to a Red Cross center for processing; the test tubes go to the lab. read more

A workhorse of the blood, the gas helps red blood cells ferry oxygen to tissues and props open tiny vessels to allow freer blood flow. It turns out that within hours of leaving the body, levels of nitric oxide in the blood begin to drop, until, by the time donated blood expires after 42 days, the gas is almost nonexistent. read more