Rhesus negative.

[hippieshake]

Hello.

Found out today after my MW appointment that I'm Rhesus negative. My MW didn't explain it to me so I've just googled it.

Does anyone know anymore about it?

Any advice would be welcome :)

Don't panic! I am rhesus negative. They may want to give you anti d (injection) during your pg and afterwards. If your baby is positive and you are negative it will prevent possible problems.

How can they tell if my baby is positive? It wont harm the baby me being that way will it? x

Im O-

You get an anti d jab at 25 weeks (some PCTs do 25 week & think it's 30)

You also get a jab post birth and they'll take a sample of chord blood

It's nothing to worry about

No expert here! Negative or positive depends on partner's blood type I believe. They just assume baby could be opposite to you. No danger at all. They just take precautions because the opposite blood types shouldn't mix (ie yours and baby's). So if you are a klutz like me and fall flat on your face at a few months pregnant they will probably give anti d as a precaution.

The rhesus thing isn't a big deal but your MW should be aware and you'll need to let them know if you sustain an impact (but you would anyway!)

I have had two safe and normal deliveries.

I'm 24+4 and my MW said I wont get my injection until 28 weeks.

Thank you for the reassurance :) It's made me feel a lot better xx

I'm also Rhesus Negative. It's a minority blood group, so unless your dp is also RhNeg, there is a high chance your baby is a different blood group. As I understand it, this doesn't pose problems in the your first pregnancy, but if you have a small uterine bleed you might start developing antibodies to the baby's blood, which can cause serious problems in subsequent pregnancies. Please somebody stop me if I've got that completely wrong.

Anyway, good news is that these days it is no big deal. They will offer you prophylactic (just in case) anti immunoglobulin to prevent any problems. You should also tell your midwife if you have any bleeding or any kind of accident that could have caused a small internal bleed without you realising it.

Hello, I am O neg here. At 29 weeks pg i was given a anti-d injection and when ds was born they took blood from the umbilical cord to check his blood type. If he had been positive then I would have needed another anti-d injection within 72 hours but he was O neg too so no need.

I'm still a bit hazy about the whole anti-d thing. I'd thought it was something to do with jaundice in future babies but then the MW started talking to me about "blue babies" and freaked me out a bit! All I can say is that I've had it in my thigh and once in my arm and for a change the arm shot was the least painful!

devora has said what I would have liked to but deleted because I couldn't write it in a way that makes any sense!

I come from the other side of it so to speak - I am a rh+ baby of a -ve mother with at least one rh+ older brother :)

Many many moons ago I was born and needed blood transfusions at birth because of this. However this was before the days of routine anti-D. I came out of it just fine.

It is only a problem with subsequent babies after you have had a +ve one and as I understand it is just as Devora says.

It's routine. You'll be fine. Just a couple of injections. Nothing to worry about.

Ok, big sciency answer here.
As someone above said Rhesus is a minority blood group. What this means is that someone who is Rhesus positive has Rhesus (or D) antigen on their red blood cells and someone who is Rhesus negative does not have this antigen. This isn't a big deal in itself (there are actually over 30 different combinations of blood group, not just the ABO groups that everyone knows about). What happens with the human immune system is that it won't make antibodies against self-antigens, therefore someone who's Rhesus D positive won't have any naturally occurring D antibodies. However, because you are negative for D antigen it is likely that you will have naturally occurring D antibodies in your blood. What this means is that if you become pregnant with a Rhesus D positive baby, when you and your baby's blood mixes (through the placenta/umbilical cord) your body will detect the presence of the D antigen in your babies blood, identify it as foreign antigen and will mount an immune response against it. This does not have any repurcussions (sp?) for a first pregnancy because an initial (or primary) immune response produces a type of antibody that can't cross the placenta (and therefore can't get to the baby). However, if you get pregnant a second time with a Rhesus positive baby your body will mount a secondary immune response which will produce a type of antibody that can cross the placenta and therefore target your babies red blood cells. This is called Haemolytic Disease of the Newborn and the result can range from a touch of jaundice (due to the products of red blood cell breakdown) to the baby needing transfusion.

Luckily, nowadays it is not a massive problem because they screen your blood type in your first pregnancy. What they will do is give you routine injections of the D antigen antibody. The premise behind this is to 'mop up' the D antigen from the baby blood that may be circulating your blood system (the antibody will not cross the placenta into your baby's blood so don't worry about that). If the D antigen is mopped up early on then it won't be at high enough levels for your body to detect it and therefore you won't mount an immune response against it. They'll give you it for each pregnancy and you shouldn't have any problems as a result.

Hope that wasn't massively complicated, really really don't worry about it though. Problems would only have arisen if they didn't detect that you were Rhesus D negative and that rarely happens now because blood type is screened early on. A couple of antibody injections and everything will be hunky dory, no problem at all.

HTH

Well done Weelaws!

and I'll just add....
even if your rare blood does mix with baby's and you're not protected, and then you do go on to develop antidodies that can attack future babies (become 'sensitized'), they won't necessarily hurt future babies..

I'm on my third succesful pregnancy after becoming sensitized, it's more a problem for blood transfusions I believe.

Thank you all the replies, I feel so much better now that it's been explained to me :)

Phew!