Abstract
Venous thromboembolism is a major cause of obstetric morbidity and mortality. During pregnancy, the risk of occurrence increases between five and ten times when compared to women of the same age who are not pregnant. Compounding this is the fact that pregnant women present certain characteristics that make diagnosis more difficult using clinical signs (high frequency of pain and swelling in the lower limbs), echographic examination (lower sensitivity and specificity for diagnosis of iliac vein thrombosis as pregnancy progresses), and laboratory findings (D-dimer levels progressively increase throughout pregnancy). Conducting careful stratification of women’s venous thromboembolism risk before pregnancy could reduce the incidence of this disease, which is frequent and difficult to diagnose during pregnancy, and of its complications.
Keywords:
venous thrombosis; prophylaxis; pregnancy