Haemostatic Changes during Pregnancy and Puerperium in Kano, North-Western Nigeria

Normal pregnancy is associated with extensive changes in haemostasis and these changes have been linked to a complex physiological adaptation, which ensures the rapid and effective control of bleeding from the placental site at the time of placental separation while allowing the expansion of the maternal and foetal circulations at the uteroplacental interface during pregnancy. However, most of these changes in blood coagulation and fibrinolysis create a state of hypercoagulability which protects the pregnant women from haemorrhage during delivery but predisposes them to thromboembolis. These changes in haemostatic system during pregnancy return to normal or non-pregnant state within 4-6 weeks after delivery.

It has been reported that the levels of coagulation factors II, V, X, XI, XII and protein C, APTT and PT remained largely unchanged during pregnancy, delivery and postpartum as they were within the nonpregnant reference intervals while plasma antithrombin III level was observed to rise significantly after normal delivery of about 2 weeks post-partum. However, fibrinogen has been found to increase during pregnancy but gets consumed together with other coagulation factors and platelets during delivery while d-dimer level was reported to increase with each trimester and decrease during puerperium. Read more>>>>>>>>>>