I thought that I would explain a little bit about what happens when I am pregnant for those of you who might not know and wonder why I have to go to the doctor so much.
It all started when I was pregnant with Conner, and barely pregnant at that. I had some spotting in the very beginning of the pregnancy and we were out working for the summer, so I went to the ER. Well, they checked everything and said that things were fine. They gave me the Rhogam shot, because I have Rh negative blood. For those that don't know about this, the Rhogam shot prevents my body from creating antibodies that will fight the baby's blood. Well, halfway through my pregnancy with Conner, when you are supposed to get the routine Rhogam shot, we found out that my body was already creating antibodies and that the Rhogam shot I had in the beginning didn't work. No one knows why it didn't work. I received the shot within the right time frame and I have never had a misscarriage or anything that should cause my blood to mix with the babies. So it is all a unknown thing on why this happened to me.
Well, so from now on the Rhogam shot will not work and my body just creates more and more antibodies that fight against the babies blood. So from the middle of my pregnancy with Conner and for the whole time with the rest of my pregnancies I am followed extremely close by a perinatologist.
So I found this article that explains what is happening to my baby now. Enjoy! I added some comments in red.
What will happen to my baby if I develop the antibodies?
First, keep in mind that this is highly unlikely if you're receiving good prenatal care and are being treated with Rh immune globulin when necessary. Even without treatment, your chances of developing the antibodies and becoming Rh-sensitized are only about 50 percent even after several Rh-incompatible pregnancies. I have a really hard time with this statement because I did have good prenatal care and no one knows why this has happened to me.
If you didn't get the shot, though, and you became Rh-sensitized and your baby was Rh-positive, he would probably develop Rh disease (hemolytic disease). Your antibodies would cross the placenta and attack the Rh factor in your baby's Rh-positive blood as if it's a foreign substance, destroying his red blood cells and causing anemia. The disease can cause problems ranging from severe newborn jaundice to brain damage or, in extreme cases, even miscarriage or stillbirth. Conner was born with severe jaundice and had to spent over a week in the hospital under bilirubin lights and for a few days at home with the lights as well. With Paxton, I had an amnio at around 30 weeks and found out that he has negative blood too. So he was fine, my blood was not fighting his. But he still ended up spending a month in the hospital after being born 5 weeks early and having a hard time eating and breathing on his own.
Once you're sensitized, you have the antibodies forever. And you produce more with each pregnancy, so the risk of Rh disease is worse for each subsequent baby. While healthcare providers try to screen and treat as many women as they can reach, about 5,000 babies still develop Rh disease in the United States every year.
The good news is that doctors are finding new ways to save babies who develop Rh disease. Your practitioner can monitor your levels of antibodies and keep tabs on your baby's condition during the pregnancy to see whether he's developing the disease. She may check on the condition of your baby's red blood cells using Doppler ultrasound or amniocentesis. I go into the perinatologist every week for an ultrasound to check the Doppler levels.
If he's doing well, you might be able to carry him to term without complications. After birth, he may be given an "exchange transfusion" to replace his diseased Rh-positive red blood cells with healthy Rh-negative cells. This stabilizes the level of red blood cells and minimizes further damage by antibodies circulating in his bloodstream. Over time these Rh-negative blood cells will die off and all your baby's red blood cells will be Rh-positive again, but by that time, the attacking antibodies will be gone.
If your baby's in distress, he might be delivered early or given transfusions through the umbilical cord. The survival rate for babies who receive a transfusion while in utero is as high as 80 to 100 percent, unless they have hydrops (a complication caused by severe anemia), in which case the chances of survival are about 40 to 70 percent. This is the situation we have. Our baby is already in distress, so we most likely will be having to do a blood transfusions for this baby, maybe more than one before it is born. And it might get to the point where the baby is safer being born than being inside of me anymore, so most likely this baby will come early.
So there you go. I had my amnio done today. This amnio will tell us the baby's blood type and exactly how much the baby is being affected by this. And we will make decisions on what needs to be done from there.
We have known that this is what would happen when I am pregnant. But it is happening a lot faster with this pregnancy than it did with Conner or Paxton. My doctor made sure that I understand this should be my last baby. I don't know if I could go through this again, so that is fine with me.
If you have any questions please post them and hopefully I can answer them. I think we have become quite the experts on this!
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5 comments:
Wow!! I knew some of this, but it seems like so much info. I hope all goes well for your little one inside. Keep us posted.
Oh Maren you are so tough!!! We will pray for you and little Axle. :) If this baby has the same blood as Paxton he should be fine? Or he'll still need a transfusion? When will you know the blood type of this baby?
I'm not sure if I know you, but you & your husband look very familiar to me. I was Janika's old roommate at Snow if that is why you look familiar to me. Anyway, I found out that I was Rh Negative with my first baby. I didn't even know what that meant at first. I have 3 kids now, and with every single one, I have had to get the rhogam shot during my pregnancies, and after too because they all have had positive blood. I have never really worried too much about being Rh Negative, because of the shot I was receiving. I guess that I just took it for granted. This was definitely an eye opener for me on what could happen. I loved reading it, and I wanted to wish you the best of luck with everything you are going through.
I'm like Keri, I knew some, but not enough. I didn't realize it got worse with each pregnancy and that was probably the cause of early labor. Except Paxton was negative and he still came early? Just crazy. So basically they know what is happening, but can't do much about it. That's crazy! I am sure you are done with all the hard work!
Maren, I just barely found out you were pregnant last Sunday, I saw it on the baby news list! I have to get the Rhogam shot as well, I guess I have been very lucky so far! I found the article very enlightening. I hope all goes well for you and the baby!
Jana
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