Placental abruption lead to HELLP

[brismom]

During my delivery my placenta abrupted. The next day post partum is when my HELLP surfaced. Do you think the Hellp was caused by the placental abruption?

[heather j]

It's usually a cascade of events. For weeks, my blood pressure had been either high or really high on strict, left-sided bedrest. Around the sixth weeks of bedrest, I ended up in L&D with an abruption, dangerous bp levels, and an emergency c-section. Immediately following delivery, my platelets crashed and went from around 150K at delivery to 50K by the following morning, so - like you - I didn't see HELLP until after delivery (which was well-documented by serial labs) and after the abruption. PE is a disease of the placenta, and all of these complications stem from that; my guess would be that your placenta caused both the HELLP and the abruption - they were both effects rather than causes. Does that make sense?

[cakesabake]

The placental abruption caused HELLP to develop for me at 35 weeks pregnant...the Maternal fetal specialist is telling me that one way to prevent a placental abruption is to take baby asprin daily in the first tri-mester of pregnancy...Unfortunately I lost my first and only baby due to HELLP syndrome. So I am willing to prevent the abruption with the asprin in the first and 2nd tri if it will give me better chances of delivering a healthy baby.

[jean]

Really? I heard the opposite-that aspirin can cause abruption..so confusing..

[cakesabake]

Really? I heard the opposite-that aspirin can cause abruption..so confusing..

MY MFM specialist did say that there are studies showing that if you take it, it may help, by my High Risk OB said that it is not definite.

[kerisue]

Just my opinion... but I suspect neither HELLP nor an abruption lead to each other, they were probably both symptoms of the problem in your pregnancy. Docs appear to be mixed about aspirin, if I were you I'd do some research, get a 2nd opinon from another MFM or regular OB, and then make the best decision you can.

[caryn]

What Kerisue said.

Both HELLP and placental abruption are thought to stem from initial implantation difficulties for the placenta and/or ongoing difficulty tolerating the placenta during pregnancy, mostly because the placenta is a foreign organ. The maternal immune system usually tolerates the placenta even though it's foreign, mostly because it hides, but sometimes the ability of the placenta to coax the maternal immune system into ignoring it breaks down/ doesn't work so well, and these hypertensive diseases of pregnancy are the downstream result.

There's a bunch on this in the "Announcements and PE in the News" section of the forum and some posts to the research blog on the main page as well, with more blogging to come (in just a few days that blog will become a steadily active part of the site, but it's been one of the slowest to come online after the site overhaul. Which is my fault, lol.)