Blood clots and pregnancy
Posted on April 28th, 2008 – 11:28 AMBy Josephine Marcotty
My colleague Maura Lerner has been getting many calls and emails about the story she wrote last week about 30-year-old Liz Logelin, who died in March a day after giving birth to her daughter.
Here’s one she felt was worth sharing.
Lisa Boyd of Minneapolis said she nearly died of a blood clot last year, shortly after giving birth to her son Murray. Since then, she has turned into “an evangelist” on blood clots, especially about their risks when associated with childbirth.
Boyd, 33, says women are rarely warned that the very act of giving birth puts them at risk for potentially fatal blood clots. She didn’t know until she ended up in the emergency room with a swollen leg, which turned out to be caused by a 12-inch blood clot. Blood thinners saved the day. She asked her doctor: “Why is this the first time I’m hearing about it in the ER?” He replied: “We don’t like to scare people. The risk is small.”
Says Boyd: “You don’t have to scare people out of their shorts. But some education would certainly benefit.”
For information on symptoms and risks, check out the National Alliance for Thrombosis and Thrombophilia. Or the Mayo Clinic.
Have you had a blood clot scare like this one?
8 Responses to "Blood clots and pregnancy"
Just a note that your link to NATT has one too many slashes. Thanks for these important links.
Thank you, Girl. The link to NATT is fixed.
It is 17 yrs to the day (4-28) that we had a daughter die during labor having her 1st child. Seeing the article on Matt & Liz sure brought back alot of memories & tears. I was preparing flower arrangements to take to her grave when I glanced at the headlines in the Sunday paper. I could not put it down without reading it. My heart aches for Matt, just as it did for my son-in-law. My daughters first symptoms was indigestion. She called her doc and said to get into Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park. Admitted at 10:00pm and tried everything to get her comfy but to no avail. Pains got worse. Her vitals were going wacky-high liver enzymes count -etc-Her vitals were off the charts so to speak. They knew they had to get that baby born soon so they induced labor instead of a C-section. By 10:00am she had seizures and went into a coma. By emergency C-section they saved the baby (we celebrated his 17th B-day yesterday) a beautiful baby boy -the spitting image of his Mom. She had a blood clot in the brain and was put on life support. The doc said the brain stem was so damaged she would be a vegetable. We knew we had to disconect life support but what an enormous decision to make. After a week her husband finally gave in. It was like a week of dying but gave us all time to say our goodbys. They titled her condition as “Hellp Syndrome”. Toxemia-high blood pressure also was present. Never heard of it before. She seemed fine before hand. Having a baby should be a joyous event but believe me-it was a tough one. We all pitched in with helping our son-in-law raising the baby and he is doing well. I wish Matt & Madeline and his parents and in-laws my deepest sympathies and know there are alot of people out there supporting him. We will keep them in our prayers.
Childbirth just cant be taken for granted any more. Learn about and ask & have your concerns explained to you. It takes a long time to heal but eventually it gets better. Hug that little baby alot, Matt and it will help you too-knowing she was a gift from Liz.
Thank you Lisa Boyd for your work on this public education function.
Liz was our niece and we miss her and of course wish this would not have happened. Liz gave Matt and the family a lasting memory of her in Madeline.
Thank you for sharing these links, Maura Lerner and Josephine Marcotty.
Rich & Penny
Thank you for your message, Rich and Penny. As I continue to work on educating others with my fellow volunteers at the local NATT chapter, I will always keep Liz in my thoughts as motivation to keep driving awareness and prevention. We are all so saddened by your loss and hope we can drive positive change.
Peace be with you all.
Thank you Lisa for the great information. My family already has a history with blood clots and I am pregnant so this will definitely be a topic of discussion at our next Dr. appointment.
I had my first child at age 32 almost 12 years ago. 5 weeks postpartum I fainted. I walked around for two weeks having all of the symptoms of a stroke (numbness & weakness in arms and legs, double vision, severe headaches). My doctor thought I had a sinus infection. The ER doc told me I was having migraines (although a CAT scan showed otherwise but he failed to point that out). I finally made it to the right doctor and a blood clot in the brain was diagnosed. At the time I lived in Dallas and I ended up at Zale Lipshy Hospital. Doctors from UT Southwestern had just published a paper on a new way to treat sagittal sinus thrombosis (a clot in the main vein that drains the blood from your head). I was patient number 21. It worked. Thank God.
I read the story of Liz and Matt Logelin in the Star Trib and have finally read his blog. I have no words, just tears.
Almost 1 year ago, after giving birth to my second child, a blood clot was also discovered in my lungs approximately 15 hrs after a horrible C-section. There were no symptoms at all. Fortunately the nurse on duty had checked my pulse/oxygen, and it alarmed. After having major surgery , I could not be put on blood thinners, so it was very frightening that I could die if there were others. I had no idea that the risk of blood clots increased with pregnancy. Thankfully, they performed a second surgery where they placed a screen in my major artery to catch anything furhter until I could start the blood thinners.
