One of my best friends just told me she is going to have a baby. I am so excited for her, but she just told me she has Rh Neg blood. I understand what this means, but I am stumped on one question she asked me.

What testing do they do to determine the Rh factor in the fetus?

First of all we need to know if Dad is Rh negative or Rh positive. If he is negative then no worries. If he is positive then she will get a rhogam shot for possible fetal incompatibility.

Usually the first child is not a problem, but subsequent children are. Is this her first child?

Yes this is her first, and the dad is positive. Thanks very much for your info. :)

Okay, this should not really present a problem in the first pregnancy, yet they will still most likely give her the rhogam shot. It is subsequent pregnancies that is usually the problem and she will get the shot with each subsequent pregnancy.

**EDIT**

The shot is given prophylactically. They won't know the blood type of the baby until birth unless they choose to run certain tests.

It's really not a big deal these days. It happens all the time.

Okay, I understand now. Thank you for that info. When we learned about the Rh factor in the pregnancy class I went to they made it sound like the body was going to reject the baby, and they didn't say anything about first pregnancy or anything after.

I feel better now. She is so excited and I'd hate for something bad to happen.

Here is how it works in first time pregnancies:

After birth, Rh immune globulin is administered to all Rh-negative, antibody (Coombs' test) negative women who give birth to Rh-positive infants.

This builds up an immunity for subsequent pregnancies in which a titre is given.

Thanks for the explanation. It always helps to know things more thoroughly. :)

Now, you are right in a sense that the mother's body will "reject" the baby. It's more like the mother's body sees the fetus as an infection if you will. But, again, this doesn't happen until the subsequent pregnancies.

I'm trying to explain it as easily as possible, bear with me, I've been studying measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox etc all day for unit test tomorrow.

Now, Mom gets pregnant, and we don't know the baby's blood type until it is born. It could be either Rh-negative or Rh-positive. So, let's say this baby is born Rh-positive. Well, Mom's body has built up an antibody to the Rh factor during the first pregnancy. When she gets pregnant the second time the antibodies recognize the Rh-positive as an invader and attempt to fight it off, much like we would with a cold or flu. So, the Rhogam shot is given to stop this process (called phagocytosis).

Again it is VERY common and nothing to worry about at all as long as the doctor knows the factors of both parents.

Okay, I see. There was nothing to bear with, that was a very good explanation. I fully understand now. Thank you very much for all the info. Sorry to take you away from your studying.

Good luck with your test tomorrow!

You didn't take me away from studying hun, I was taking a well deserved break. ;)

As J_9 has said, this is no longer a serious problem. The problem occurs in later pregnancies and even then, as long as the OB/Gyn is aware of it, there shouldn't be an issue.

I know because I survived it. I was actually born a so-called "blue baby" because the antibodies from my mom's blood were attacking my red blood cells. I was fortunate in that my mom's OB and OB nurse were up on the latest medical issues and they gave me an exchange transfusion. But that was a long time ago and the condition is well known and monitored. So its no longer the worry it was 50 years ago.

I had two boys and I'm rh negative and one just had jundice billy ruben when he was born because he had pos and my other one was 3 months permie but that was only because my placenta but he also had jundice but they are both fine hope everything works out fine

Carebear, I thing you mean the jaundice was caused by increased BILIRUBEN, LOL

Yea that is it thank u wasn't sure how to spell it thank u lol

Ah, you spelled it like it sounds. That is okay. Just wanted to clear it up in case you every see it on a lab report or something so you would know what you were looking at.