Help Keep Love Alive
What Can You Do? Start the Conversation Now!
- No one ever expects to be in the position of an organ donor or a recipient. Start talking about it now.
- Talk about organ donation as part of your family’s healthcare discussions. Sharing the real facts and many options for organ donation can help parents and children decide to keep love alive and pay it forward to save a child’s life!
- When families make a commitment to discuss and build a stronger awareness of pediatric organ donation in advance of a tragedy, the likelihood of donation is greatly increased.
- Parents and other adults can help save the lives of over 50 percent of those on the waiting list through living donation, one of the most common needs for many procedures, including organ transplants. Living donors may give one of their kidneys, a lobe of a lung, or a portion of the liver, as well as blood stem cells from the umbilical cord and peripheral blood stem cells through bone marrow. Click here for more about Living Donations
- Currently, most child donors are identified by organ procurement organizations asking loved ones to donate during a very difficult time of loss. These organizations are notified of potential donors by health-care professionals. Some of the challenges facing these organizations is the rate at which some hospitals identify potential donors, and that not all hospitals have staff trained to have these discussions with grieving parents. The best solution is parents making the decision to donate before tragedy strikes.
In 2018, of the approximately 115,000 people who are on the waiting list for an organ transplant, nearly 2,000 are children. Each year, up to 100 children may die waiting for organs. But, parents and other adults can help save the lives of over 50 percent of those on the waiting list through living donation.
Take The Pledge
Take THE PLEDGE to commit to organ donation and notify your primary care physician that you and your children have had the conversation and wish to be considered for donation.
Parents can register on the national organ registry at Donate Life
Registry is also available for adults and driving-age children through many states’ driver’s license sign-up.***