2025/05/21 by Laura A. Magee, Roopen Arya, Clare Boag +7 · 1 voice
Medicine · #Blood Coagulation and Thrombosis Mechanisms #Pregnancy and preeclampsia studies #Venous Thromboembolism Diagnosis and Management
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/1471-0528.18229
openalex publication_date 2025/05/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Between 2020 and 2022 in the United Kingdom (UK), there were 45 maternal deaths from venous thromboembolism (VTE), out of more than 2 million maternities. This occurred despite extensive risk assessment and prescribing of low molecular weight heparin (LMWH) thromboprophylaxis, alongside clinicians' overestimate of risk and commitment to the cause. Whilst every maternal death is a tragedy, the challenge ahead is immense-to identify, in an efficient and consistent way, those few women at risk of life-threatening thrombosis, and then minimise that risk with a cost-effective therapy that is acceptable to pregnant and postpartum women, and does not do more harm than good. We propose a way forward.