From Deseret News archives:
HELLP! Often misdiagnosed syndrome can threaten life of expectant mother, baby
Nathan Hodgson made two trips to the drug store to pick up increasingly powerful indigestion remedies for his pregnant wife, Ellen, just days before her baby was due, again after an uneventful pregnancy.
Tammy Thunell was told her swollen hands and feet were normal.
Eventually, each woman was diagnosed with a syndrome that's a subset of preeclampsia, a medical emergency that can be solved only by delivering the baby.
It's called HELLP syndrome, a nickname coined by Dr. Louis Weinstein in 1982 because of its characteristics. The letters stand for Hemolysis, which is the breakdown of red blood cells, Elevated Liver enzymes and Low Platelet count, which negatively affects blood clotting.
Despite the moniker, it's anything but helpful. It can pose a life-and-death emergency for baby and mom, regardless of when it occurs in the pregnancy. And although some practitioners say it may be possible to delay up to 72 hours to allow very premature babies to gain lung-building benefit from steroids, prompt delivery is a must. So HELLP babies are sometimes very premature and sometimes full-term.
Pilkington was worried because she'd seen firsthand the dangers of preeclampsia and HELLP. When her sister, Cindy Wagstaff, was 28 weeks pregnant, she went to the ER with a severe migraine. Even though a few hours later she had an emergency C-section, she nearly died. And her son, Stephen, who weighed only 1 pound 14 ounces at birth, was in the intensive care unit for three months and developed cerebral palsy from a blood clot. Later, Wagstaff had two more children and two more cases of HELLP, although early intervention spared those babies any long-term effects. Pilkington knew it could happen in a second pregnancy or in an even later pregnancy. She changed doctors.
The list of misdiagnoses is long. Women have also been told they have gastritis, disseminated intravascular coagulation, acute hepatitis and even flu.
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