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It can also be given at anytime if there is concern a sensitising event has happened. The injection is offered at to rhesus negative women who have rhesus positive partners at 28 and 34 weeks of pregnancy. All women are offered blood tests as part of their antenatal screening to determine whether their blood is RhD negative or positive. Rhesus disease is uncommon these days because it can usually be prevented using injections of a medication called 'anti-D immunoglobulin'. This can lead to anaemia, jaundice and brain damage in the baby. These antibodies can cross the placenta and destroy the baby’s blood cells, leading to a condition called 'rhesus disease', or 'haemolytic disease of the newborn'.

if your baby is in a breech position and you have an external cephalic versionĪ sensitising event usually doesn’t affect the first pregnancy, but if the woman has another pregnancy with a rhesus positive baby, her immune response will be greater and she may produce a lot more antibodies.

abdominal trauma, such as, a blow to the abdomen.

some tests you may have during your pregnancy can be invasive, such as chorionic villus sampling (CVS) or amniocentesis.

There are a number of ways that this can occur: The problem can occur if a small amount of the baby’s blood enters the mother’s bloodstream during pregnancy or birth, the mother can produce antibodies against the rhesus positive cells (known as ‘anti-D antibodies’). This can happen if the baby’s father is RhD positive.

If your blood is RhD negative, it isn’t usually a problem, unless you are pregnant and your baby happens to be RhD positive.

This shows your 'Rhesus factor' (RhD), which indicates if you have a protein known as 'D antigen' on the surface of your red blood cells.Īround 17 out of 100 people in Australia have a negative blood type. These blood types are further identified as being either positive or negative. You inherit your blood group from a mix of your parents' genes. Everybody has one of 4 blood types (A, B, AB or O).