Erythroblastosis Fetalis

The human body is domestic to trillions of red blood cells, also known as RBCs or erythrocytes. These blood cells carry oxygen, iron, and many other nutrients to the appropriate places in the body

There are four major blood types: A, B, O, and AB. Another blood type is called Rh (protein in the blood). The human body is domestic to trillions of red blood cells, also known as RBCs or erythrocytes.  Most individuals are Rh-positive; they have Rh factor. Rh-negative individuals do not have it. Rh factor is acquired through genes.

In case you're Rh-negative and your child is Rh-positive, your body will respond to the baby's blood as a foreign substance. It'll generate antibodies (proteins) against the baby's blood. These antibodies more often do not cause problems during the first pregnancy. But Rh incompatibility may cause issues in later pregnancies, in case the baby is Rh-positive. This is because the antibodies remain in your body once they have formed. The antibodies can cross the placenta and lyse, or break apart, the red blood cells of the fetus resulting in erythroblastosis fetalis.

Erythroblastosis fetalis moreover called the hemolytic disease of the newborn, sort of anemia in which the red blood cells (erythrocytes) of a baby are destroyed in a maternal immune response coming about from a blood group incompatibility between the fetus and its mother. This incompatibility arises when the baby acquires a certain blood factor from the father that's absent in the mother.

Symptoms of Erythroblastosis Fetalis

1. Babies appear swollen, pale, or jaundiced after birth.
2. The baby has a low RBC count.
3. Babies also experience a condition known as hydrops fetalis, where fluid starts to accumulate in spaces where the fluid is normally not present. This includes spaces in the: abdomen, heart,   and lungs.

Rh sensitivity is likely to develop during labor, the chance of the disease developing in consequent Rh-positive pregnancies increases. The risk can be diminished in case the mother gets infusions of Rh immunoglobulin, which devastates fetal RBCs in her bloodstream, during her first pregnancy. The baby also is secured from Rh hemolytic disease in case an ABO blood group incompatibility exists concurrently; protection is conferred by ABO antibodies, which devastate fetal blood cells in the maternal circulation before the mother creates Rh sensitivity. Fetal-maternal incompatibilities inside the ABO blood group alone are more common than those of the Rh sort, but the immune response is usually much less extreme unless the fetus is type A and the mother type O.