What does hemolysis mean for pregnant women with type O blood?

Pregnant women may experience hemolysis due to blood type during pregnancy. The blood type that is more prone to hemolysis is type O blood. Many pregnant women with type O blood will develop hemolysis, so women with type O blood must be very alert to the occurrence of hemolysis when they are pregnant. So what does it mean if a pregnant woman has type O blood hemolysis?

What does hemolysis in pregnant women with type O blood mean?

Hemolytic disease in pregnant women with type O blood is a hemolytic reaction that occurs when the mother's blood is type O and the child is type A or type B. The mother's body contains anti-A or anti-B antigens, which enter the fetus's body and destroy the fetus's blood cells, causing hemolysis. When the fetus inherits the father's blood type gene, and the mother lacks this antigen, if the mother's immune antibodies enter the fetus's blood circulation and combine with the blood type antigens on the child's red blood cells, it will cause hemolytic anemia and jaundice in the child. However, it is not necessarily the case that the blood types of mother and daughter are inconsistent that will cause hemolysis. The prevalence of hemolysis in pregnant women with type O blood is 2~2.5%. The main manifestation of neonatal hemolysis is jaundice within one or two days after birth and it worsens rapidly.

Hemolytic disease in pregnant women with type O blood and newborn babies

1. Jaundice is a clinical symptom of ABO hemolytic disease. Most cases occur 2 to 3 days after birth, and about 1/4 of babies develop jaundice within the first day after birth. Similarly, about one-quarter of patients developed moderate to severe jaundice (referring to total blood bilirubin above 342 mol/L (2b250 g/dL)).

2. Anemia. Patients with ABO hemolytic disease all have varying degrees of anemia, but the degree is generally mild. Severe anemia (hemoglobin concentration below 100g/L) accounts for only about 5%.

In some mild cases of ABO hemolytic disease, the early symptoms may not be severe, but terminal anemia may occur 2 to 6 weeks after birth, or anemia may become very severe in the "physiological anemia" stage 8 to 12 weeks after birth. This is due to the continued presence of antigens, resulting in diffuse hemolysis. Blood antigens can reduce the life span of red blood cells.

It is reported that the lifespan of blood cells in such children is only about 35 days, and the daily hemoglobin concentration drops by about 4 times that of normal children of the same period. Blood cell destruction increases, and the bone marrow hematopoietic function is physiologically low at this time and cannot be effectively replenished, eventually leading to neonatal late stage anemia.

The article explains in detail what hemolysis in pregnant women with type O blood means, and also introduces in detail the symptoms of hemolysis in newborns of pregnant women with type O blood. As a woman with type O blood, if you are pregnant, it is best to take effective measures to check whether type O blood hemolysis has occurred, so that you can take better measures to prevent the occurrence of neonatal hemolytic disease.