Your Childrens Health

In the past, Rh Incompatibility posed a serious threat to pregnancies.  Thanks to advances in modern medicine, it can be tested for and treated.
          When your doctor performs your first blood test, they will test to find out your blood type and rhesus (Rh) factor.  There are four different blood types – A, B, AB, and O – and each blood type has different proteins on the surface of the red blood cells.  Each blood type is also classified depending on the presence of another protein on the surface of the blood cells that indicates the Rh factor.  If you are a carrier of this protein, you are Rh positive.  If the protein is not present, you are Rh negative. 
          About 85% of people are Rh positive.  However, if a woman is Rh negative and is pregnant with the child of a man who is Rh positive, the result may be Rh incompatibility.  The baby could have Rh positive blood, inherited from their father, inside the Rh negative mother.  This is the case in about 50% of children born to Rh negative mothers and Rh negative mothers.

          Why would this present a problem?  Our bodies are programmed to produce antibodies that attack foreign cells in our body.  An Rh negative mother’s body could mistakenly identify a Rh positive baby as an unwanted intruder.  Her antibodies would attack the baby’s red blood cells, causing them to swell and rupture.  This condition is known as hemolytic or Rh disease, and causes dangerously low levels of red blood cells in the baby.
          Rh incompatibility is not an issue during first pregnancies.  However, once the Rh negative mother’s blood has intermingled with Rh positive blood, during a previous delivery, miscarriage, abortion, ectopic pregnancy or blood transfusion, she will start to produce the antibodies that could attack a future pregnancy. 
          Thankfully, medical advances have made Rh incompatibility a treatable condition.  When a woman with the potential for Rh compatibility becomes pregnant, she will be given a series of two Rh immune-globulin shots.  The first shot is given around the 28^th week of pregnancy.  The second shot is given within 72 hours after giving birth.  Rh immune-globulin is like a vaccine that prevents the mother’s body from producing the harmful antibodies that could cause a problem for the baby.
          If the doctor determines that you have already produced these antibodies, there are options depending on the severity of the condition.  The baby will be closely monitored to ensure that their red blood cell count does not reach a dangerous level.  As a last resort, a series of special blood transfusions can be performed either immediately after birth or in utero.  However, the Rh immune-globulin shots are so effective that these transfusions are necessary is less than 1% of Rh disease cases.

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This entry was posted on Friday, March 31st, 2006 at 3:32 am and is filed under Pregnancy and Newborns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.