BLOOD-CLOTTING ACTIVATION DURING NORMAL-PREGNANCY

Pregnancy is considered as a hypercoagulable state (1) and an increase d incidence of thromboembolic phenomena has been reported in pregnant women (2). Relevant changes in the hemostatic mechanism have been repo rted during physiological pregnancy: briefly, increased levels of coag ulation factors, enhanced thrombin generation and suppression of fibri nolysis are commonly found in women with uncomplicated pregnancy (3-8) . We recently described progressive increases in fibrinogen and D-dime r plasma levels during normal pregnancy (9). The increase in D-dimer l evels makes difficult their interpretation for the exclusion of thromb oembolic phenomena in pregnancy. The behavior of prothrombin fragment 1+2 (F1+2) levels during physiological pregnancy is scarcely known. Th e aim of this preliminary study was to establish range values of F1+2 plasma levels for different periods of normal pregnancy.