Factor V Leiden is a variant of the factor V among humans that causes hypercoagulability, which is the propensity for developing blood clots within the blood stream.
Factor V Leiden doubles a person’s risk of developing deep vein thrombosis. This is genetically passed on hereditary condition that tends to raise the chances of several complications during pregnancy:
- Women who have this condition are at higher risk of blood clotting in pregnancy which may take the form of a pulmonary embolism or deep vein thrombosis.
- There is also an increased risk of developing preeclampsia (which is the development of hypertension during pregnancy)
- Factor V Leiden can cause blood to clot in the placenta, the umbilical cord or in the fetus itself (if the fetus has inherited the gene that passes the disorder to the fetus). Therefore the risk of having a low birth weight child, a still born child or repeated miscarriages becomes higher with this disorder.
This is one of those inexplicable conditions that seem not to affect some women at all and affects some women so negatively that they have repeated miscarriages or other pregnancy complications.
Treatments for this include taking aspirin to prevent dangerous blood clotting and heparin injections taken to the stomach.
