PubMed1999
When bleeding disorders coincide with pregnancy, they might be congenital or acquired diseases, if not arising as a more acute complication of the pregnancy itself. The paper gives a review of the most common bleeding disorders out of internal medical constellations. History taking is the most effective way to open the diagnostic approach. If childbearing is desired the couple in question should be counselled accordingly in collaboration with a hematologist. Some conditions might be unfavourable, e.g. hemophila in male offspring, others might be serious but manageable, as in v. Willebrand-Disease or autoimmunologic thrombocytopenic purpura. Prenatal invasive diagnostics with fetal blood sampling at an early stage of pregnancy may reduce the hazards for the baby insofar, as it allows the more precise estimation of fetal risks at birth. Cesarean section will not in all cases be the way of choice (e.g. in v. Willebrand-Disease), in others it might be the better way to deliver a fetus at risk in order to avoid intracranial hemorrhage (in severe cases of ITP). Always both, mother and fetus, are at risk, but almost in any cases in different shades and grades of severeness. There is rarely a firm correlation of the maternal and the fetal hemostatic parameters in cases of connatal or acquired hemorrhagic disorders. Pregnancy itself leads to a certain compensation of defects in clotting factors, since the synthesis of factors increase or they are circulating more in activated form. Pregnancy is a state of a silently ongoing intravascular coagulation at least in the uteroplacental circulation. From there it is linked with the general circulation of the maternal organism. When immunologic etiologies in thrombocytopenias play a role, there will always be the incalculable rate of placental transfer of antiplatelet-antibodies to the fetus. The entire field requires knowledge, counseling, collaboration and foresight.