Haven't posted in over a year - 35 weeks pregnant

Hi Everyone,

My name is Elly and I'm 32. I haven't posted on this site for over a year and I tried to log back on today and couldn't remember my username or password so I had to recreate a new one. So hello everyone!!!

Quick background on me. I was diagonsed in Dec 2008, my platelets have been ranging between 50-80. Never been treated just monitored. Got a bone marrow and tested for several viruses and diseases, everything came back perfect so ITP it is!

I pretty much stop coming back to the site as my life got kinda hectic. Got engaged July 2009, married Dec 2009, and found out I was pregnant Jan 2010...pretty much a busy girl and my platelets have been stable, no real symptoms as I truly believe my body got used to the lower counts so the bruising was less, etc.

Since I found out about my pregnancy in January, I have been montiored monthly, and since last week I am being montiored weekly. My counts last week dropped to 48 from 52 the week before but my hemo felt that is still stable and she wanted to wait one more week before treatment. Now I am 35 weeks pregnant and today I found out my platelets are at 25!!!!! Half of what they were last week so needless to say, I am freaked out!!!! But I started my steroids asap today....60mg a day. I retest my blood next Monday. Oh do I hope they go up. This is my first time treating so I don't know if I respond or not. I'm nervous about spontanous bleeding and I'm nervous for my little baby girl.

My hemo told me a count of 50 is good for delivery without the epidural. But now that I'm under that, we needed to treat to get my platelets up incase I need a c-section, or if they are high enough I can get an epidural. I really don't know what my delivery will be like but I am going with the flow.

So far today, I have felt sick to my stomach from the steroids. What else can I expect? Is baby ok? And will I be able to breast feed even though I have taken steroids?

Thanks for listening everyone!!
Elly

Hi there - way to go getting to 35 weeks on your own! It's always nice not to treat but sometimes you just have to. I hope the steroids works. They won't harm the baby. Risks seem to be mostly with increasing blood sugar or pressure during pregnancy but you're near the end of your pregnancy.

I was diagnosed when my baby was 8 months old and I was breastfeeding so I had to find out right away what was okay regarding treatments. Steroids are considered "too large" to pass to breastmilk and only would in small amounts. There's an excellent resource for this I can try to find. I posted it on the old forum. If you're taking steroids while breastfeeding, you can try to wait 4 hrs between taking it and feeding. IVIg is considered fine too. I guess the concern there is that it's a blood product and comes with those risks. I'll try to find the old forum links. All the best!