The risk of abortion and stillbirth in antithrombin-, protein C-, and protein S-deficient women

Hereditary deficiencies of the naturally occurring anticoagulants are well recognized conditions predisposing to recurrent venous thromboembolism. Since thrombotic phenomena have been implied as a cause of abortion and stillbirth, we hypothesized that these deficiencies increase the risk of fetal demise. A group of 129 female subjects who had been pregnant at least once and who had a family member with documented venous thrombosis associated with a deficiency of AT, PC or PS were studied. We first assessed the obstetric history and subsequently determined the deficiency status. In the 60 deficient subjects 42 (22.3%) of the 188 pregnancies resulted in miscarriage or stillbirth as compared to 23 (11.4%) of the 202 pregnancies in the 69 non-deficient subjects. The relative risk of abortion and stillbirth per pregnancy for deficient women as compared to non-deficient women was 2.0 (95% C.I. 1.2-3.3).