Updated October 2013
Other medical conditions and premature birth
You may need special treatment during pregnancy if you have certain medical conditions.
Your baby may be more likely to be born early if you have:
- kidney conditions
- respiratory problems, including asthma
- heart disease
- high blood pressure
- thyroid disease
- rhesus disease (see below)
- congenital disorders
- Hughes syndrome/antiphospholipid antibody syndrome, a condition that causes blood clots (see below)
Other factors include abdominal surgery during pregnancy and a family history of diseases or genetic conditions that could affect you or the baby.
Hughes syndrome/Antiphospholipid antibody syndrome
This syndrome, also known as antiphospholipid antibody syndrome (APS) or sticky blood syndrome, makes the blood more likely to thicken and clot. It has been associated with recurrent miscarriage.
With treatment, the risk or miscarriage is far lower, but there is an increased risk of premature delivery and complications such as pre-eclampsia.
If you have APS you will be monitored closely throughout your pregnancy and your baby will need to be delivered in a hopsital with a neonatal intensive care unit.
Also called rhesus incompatability, this condition can occur when the mother and baby have different blood types. The blood cells of a mother with rhesus negative blood may make antibodies against the blood cells of her rhesus positive baby, causing anaemia and jaundice in the baby and in some cases leading to premature delivery. In severe cases rhesus incompatibility can be life-threatening, but luckily it is easily prevented.
If blood tests early in your pregnancy show that you are rhesus negative, and if your partner is rhesus positive, there is a chance that your baby could be rhesus positive as well.
You can then be given one or two injections to stop your blood cells attacking those of your baby. The team will take blood tests throughout pregnancy to test for antibodies to check whether this is going to be a problem.
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Henderson D, Macdonald S (2004) Mayes Midwifery (13th edition), London, Balliere Tindall
James D, Steer PJ, Wiener C et al (2011) High risk pregnancy, management options, (4th edition), Elsevier Saunders
ADAM Medical Encyclopedia (updated 2010) Premature Infant, Medline Plus, US National Library of Medicine, http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001562.htm
Smits-Wintjens VE, Walther FJ, Lopriore E. (2008) 'Rhesus haemolytic disease of the newborn: Postnatal management, associated morbidity and long-term outcome', Seminars in Fetal and Neonatal Medicine; 13(4):265-271
Vashisht A, Regan L (2005) Antiphospholipid syndrome in pregnancy – an update, The Journal of the Royal College of Physicians, Vol 35
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