Pregnancy after confirmed PE

[celebmum]

Hi.. I had a confirmed Pulmonary Embolism (2blood clots in one of my lungs) at 34weeks pregnant. I had to have daily anticogulant injections till delivery, and for 12weeks afterwards and then 6months of anticogulant tablets.. which i'm still on.

I don't know what caused this, why it happened etc, just that i am very lucky that i knew something wasn't right and now have a perfectly healthy baby boy. PE's are one of the biggest killers of pregnant women.

I was wondering if anyone else has had , or knows someone who has and then gone on to have a 2nd child? would it be wise to have another pregnancy and risk this happening again, no garuantee that it would though..

I had bi-lateral (both lungs) pulomonary emboli in my last pregnancy, at 21 weeks. I had numerous risk factors, fifth pregnancy (apparently risk goes up after 3), long term bed rest, twin pregnancy, choriamnionitis (infection in the bag of waters) and BMI of 30. They seem to think being pregnant was the biggest risk.

Bizarrely, I couldn't even walk across the car park to go into the hospital and I was still insisting to my husband that I was fine, just out of breath as pregnantg with twins and unfit as I had been on bedrest for weeks. When I got to the hospital, my sats were going down to 85, so it was pretty serious. I don't like to make a fuss....

Anyway, I was on twice daily clexane (heparin) injections for either the rest of my pregnancy and then six weeks after, or three months after the original diagnosis if my pregnancy ended prior to term and then warfarin for three months. My pregnancy ended at 24 weeks but we were trying to concieve again, so I am still on twice daily clexane injections, which I will stay on until the end of Sept, whch is actually 7 months post diagnosis.

As I am now pregnant, at the end of Sept. I will go onto one injection of clexane daily and stay on that until six weeks post delivery. I think daily 'maintenance' injections of clexane are standard for women who are at risk of PE's.