Pregnant Women with RH Negative Blood Type

I just visited my OB yesterday and I was asked again to verify my blood type if indeed it is RH negative. This is my second pregnancy and I remember with my first baby, she injected me a medicine for this reason. The medicine, just like the blood type, is very rare to find. We were able to bought it before from Makati Medical Center, its quite expensive though. I did not really pay attention to it before but since I need to undergo the same process I did a little research on how it would affect me and my baby.

We are all familiar with the blood type ABO but our blood also have RH Factor. Most common is RH positive. 15% of the world's entire population are RH negative which is mostly Europeans. Only 3 in every 1000 Asians have this blood type, probably from a remote European ancestors. (And wow! I am one of them.)

Below explain how can it affect pregnant woman.

If a woman has Rh negative blood and the man has Rh positive blood, then it is possible for problems to arise.

Note: Rh Disease can only occur in women that have Rh Negative blood.

Note: If both the mother and baby are Rh negative, then there is no risk.

Note: If both the mother and natural father are Rh negative, then there is no risk because the child must also be Rh negative. However, most doctors prefer to presume that all Rh negative women are at risk and will treat her accordingly.

If an Rh negative woman has a baby that is Rh positive, then it is possible for some of the baby's blood to enter into her system. This can happen under several circumstances:

• during the birth,

• naturally (between 28 weeks and delivery),

• during an amniocentesis,

• at an abortion,

• when a miscarriage occurs.

If the baby's Rh positive blood enters a mother who is Rh Negative, then her immune system

sees the cells as 'incompatible' or 'foreign' and will subsequently produce anti-rhesus antibodies to try to destroy them for her own self-protection.

This may not seem like a big problem, however, if she has another pregnancy where the baby is Rh positive, then these antibodies that have formed will pass into the baby's bloodstream via the placenta and attack the red blood cells of the baby.

Once these naturally created anti-rhesus antibodies are present in the mother's bloodstream, they will remain for life in the same way as antibodies for other chicken pox for example.