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Hi everyone! I am a 31 year old mother of two and new to this community. After having routine blood tests done during my first pregnancy, it was discovered that I had ITP. My levels stuck around 90,000 throughout that pregnancy, which was awesome! After delivery, my levels actually went down and stayed in the 70,000 range. Pregnancy number two was much different. My levels dropped at one point to 13,000 and I had to have emergency IVIG and again at a different time. I was on 80-100 mg of Prednisone which I absolutely hated for obvious reasons and in the doctor's office about 4-5 times a week which I'm sure is a familiar story for many of you. After delivering my second daughter, my levels have stuck around the 50,000 range. Which brings me to my "questions!" My husband and I are very interested in having a third child. My husband is concerned about my health, but we feel that this is a doable thing. My hematologist is obviously against me having any more children. To those of you who started out at a moderate level (50k) how did your pregnancies go? Have you had your spleen removed and if so, what was the result? I'm also wondering how low your platelets have to get before there is a true danger of your baby having bleeding on the brain. I'm not as concerned about my health as I am the babies'.

Here's one more question I'll throw out there...did any of you experience a rise in your count upon finishing breastfeeding? I'm still nursing right now and have read a little bit about some women who notice that their count goes up after they're done nursing.

I'm looking forward to getting to know you all! Thanks for reading my little novel!!

That is odd that your hematologist is against another pregnancy, everything I've read shows this disorder is not a factor on whether or not you should have a child. I'm not a doc so there may be things I can't take into consideration such as your previous pregnancy history. Hope you get a 2nd opinion.
My counts usually stay around 40-50 thou. During my 1st and only pregnancy they went up to 90thou and stayed there. I have an idea about most recent your pregnancy. From what I understood from my doctor is that because a fetus is something like a foreign body, an immune system may react to it affecting a platelet count possibly upping it's defense and killing off more platelets. I wonder if during your second pregnancy something went on to affect your immune system or perhaps you were eating something that thins the blood. Have you seen the list of things that ITP people are not supposed to eat/drink/medicate with? It's a mile long, maybe you were ingesting something on there and it's affect was more pronounced during pregnancy (again going back to your immune system being on red alert w/the baby on board).
Okay so I don't know if any of that was helpful but let me get back to your questions. I had my spleen removed without any real change but my count does seem to stay at the 40-50 thou range. I have gotten down to 6,000 but I got Rituxan after that and bounced back. My splenectomy was over a decade ago and at the time my doc said there was about a 50/50 chance that the spleen was the problem. I think the surgery has fallen more out of favor, but again, I'm not a doctor.
Not sure about the count threshold that could affect the baby bleeding in the brain. I was told I would have symptoms if my count got to low therefore putting the baby in danger.
Not sure about the breastfeeding either, I think new mommyhood wiped my memories of my counts while breastfeeding, great question tho!