Management of pregnant women with hereditary and acquired thrombophilia

Thrombophilia can be defined as a predisposition to form clots inappropriately. The predisposition to form clots can arise from genetic factors, acquired changes in the clotting mechanism or, more commonly, through an interaction bet­ween genetic and acquired factors. Abnormalities in he­mo­stasis that are associated with clinical thrombophilia in­clude heritable defects, such as mutations in the genes en­co­ding the natural anticoagulants antithrombin, protein C and protein S, or clotting factors prothrombin and fac­tor V, and acquired defects, such as antiphospholipids. Wo­men with thrombophilic defects have been shown to be at an increased risk not only of pregnancy associated throm­bo­em­bo­lism, but also of other vascular complications of preg­nan­cy, including preeclampsia and fetal loss.