eli5: If your leg gets amputated, how does your body know to not produce enough blood to replace what was lost?
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The body responds to its own needs. Blood is composed (mainly) of water, cells and proteins. The amount of red blood cells an its hemoglobin content depends on oxygen consumption of the body. If your leg gets amputated, you will lose certain amount lf blood, and with it you’ll have less red blood cells and less oxygen transport capacity, but you will also lose muscle and tissues that consume oxygen. If there’s more oxygen consumption than delivery via red blood cells, your body (the kidneys) will sense this difference and make a hormone called erythropoietin that will stimulate bone marrow to make more red blood cells and more haemoglobinto correct this, until there is no difference between oxygen consumption/delivery.
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