Gestational Thrombophilia

OVERVIEW

Thombophilia is a serious blood disorder that causes a person's blood to clot easily or excessively. Gestational thrombophilia occurs during pregnancy. It can be life-threatening to the fetus because the woman can develop a blood clot that closes off blood from her side of the placenta. When blood cannot flow properly from the mother's side of the placenta to the fetus, the fetus is starved of essential oxygen and nutrients. A majority of these fetuses die, either by miscarriage or stillbirth. Those who don't die suffer growth retardation in the uterus or are born prematurely or underweight.

Some physicians estimate that gestational thrombophilia threatens the lives of 500,000 fetuses every year in the United States and may be the reason behind most of the "unexplained miscarriages" in the country that are not caused by genetic disorders.

At The Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center, we have a hematologist/oncologist who is widely known for his diagnosis and treatment of gestational thrombophilia. As a hematologist/oncologist, Stanley E. Waintraub, M.D., chief of the Division of Hematology, is skilled in treating all types of cancer and serious blood disorders such as gestational thrombophilia. He has dedicated a large part of his medical practice to treating women with gestational thrombophilia and saving their fetuses.

TREATMENT SERVICES

Treatment of the disorder is relatively simple: a blood thinner, usually heparin or warfarin (Coumadin), that the woman takes in pill form every day during her pregnancy. The blood thinner prevents clotting of the woman's blood but doesn't cross the placenta and harm the fetus.