Clotting Proteins and Pregnancy

Researchers at Yale University have identified proteins in the blood that play a significant role in miscarriages, preterm delivery, and other common problems in pregnancy. This has to do with low levels of clotting proteins called protein z and protein s. If they're too low, they create numerous problems before and during delivery.

Miscarriages occur sometimes in women who face clotting proteins problem during pregnancy. One such case was with Elisabeth Kelly Vitola. She had one miscarriage after another. She didn't know she had a medical condition that was causing the problem. She finally got pregnant with little Abigail. Every passing week made Elisabeth happy as the baby was still safe.

But a thought always lurked in her mind if she would deliver safely this time. On diagnosis, it was found that Elisabeth had a common blood clotting problem called Factor Five Leiden. It causes excessive clotting, and it’s been recognized in the past few years as a significant cause of miscarriages. Women who miscarry not necessarily have clotting proteins problem.

Now, Yale University researchers have identified a problem with other clotting factors, namely, anti-clotting proteins Z and S. Protein Z and protein S are anti-clotting proteins that prevent blood clotting. Protein Z, in fact, has just recently been discovered. "What we found, is that patients with these anti-clotting proteins were lower that had pregnancy complications as opposed to normal pregnancy." Study author Dr. Michael Paidas is Director of Program for Thrombosis and Hemostatis in Women's Health at Yale University.

He found that women who had pregnancy complications had the lowest levels of protein S. He says the low levels of the two proteins may act together with other genetic clotting tendencies to adversely affect pregnancy. "About 8% of all pregnancies have a pregnancy complication like preterm delivery, or miscarriage, or preeclampsia, a blood pressure related problem, or have bleeding in pregnancy. And being able to identify these changes early on in pregnancy, one helps us to predict who will be at risk, and secondly may offer us an opportunity to prevent these complications in that pregnancy."

"It feels better after they diagnose you with something so you're like okay this is what's going on." says Elisabeth. 8% of women have one of these complications and then if you add the risk of preterm delivery, which is just over 12% in the United States right now, roughly speaking about 20% of women are actually at risk for having a pregnancy problem. So identifying these proteins and addressing the issue will help lots of women getting pregnant.

Researchers would like to have a test either before pregnancy or during pregnancy, so as to determine who may have complications with clotting proteins. But researchers are 2 years away from offering a woman a battery of tests that would actually predict who would have a complication from who may not Currently, tests are being conducted on women, in New York and elsewhere, who already have had either a family history of pregnancy problem or a pregnancy complication.

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