was defined as platelet count (PC) of less than 150,000/µL. Patients were included if they were known cases of chronic ITP prior to pregnancy or were diagnosed during pregnancy with PCs of less than 80,000/µL for which other causes were exclud- ed.5-7 Other causes of thrombocytopenia include sep- sis, HEELP (hemolysis, elevated liver enzymes and low platelet) syndrome, disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC), drug induced thrombocytopenia, and thrombocytopenia associated with autoimmune diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosis, thrombotic thrombocytopenia, hemolytic uremic syn- drome and hereditary forms of thrombocytopenia.8 Incidental or gestational thrombocytopenia was diag- nosed when thrombocytopenia was first diagnosed during pregnancy in an otherwise asymptomatic patient with platelet counts of more than 80,000/µL.5,6 These cases were excluded from this study. According to the PCs, the mothers and their neonates were classified to have mild (100,000≤PC<150 000/µL) moderate (50,000≤PC<100 000/µL) and severe (PC<50,000/µL) thrombocytopenia. A woman was considered to have preeclampsia if her blood pressure was ≥140/90 with urine protein of more than 300 mg in 24 hours or more than 1+ dipstick.9 Women with overt or gestational diabetes who were diagnosed according to ACOG criteria10 were analyzed as diabetic group. If delivery occurred before 259 days of gestational age, it was considered as a preterm birth (PTB).11 Gestational ages were calculated from the first day of the last menstrual period and were confirmed by first trimester ultrasound scans. The extracted data included maternal PC at deliv- ery, history of ITP prior to pregnancy, prior splenec- tomy, therapeutic modalities, mode of delivery and complications, neonatal PC at birth, gestational age at delivery, neonatal birth weight and NICU admission. This project was approved by the Ethics Commit- tee of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. Statisti- cal analyses were performed by SPSS software (Ver- sion 16, Chicago, IL, USA). Evaluation of correlation between maternal and neonatal PCs was performed by Pearson correlation test. Evaluation of correlation between previous splenectomy in the mother and ne- Pregnancies with thrombocytopenia onatal PC was performed by independent sample t- test. Chi-Square test was used for comparison of ratios that were presented as number (%) and for comparison of means, independent sample t test was used. Statistical significance was set at p<0.05. Results One hundreds and thirty two pregnancies were in- cluded from125 women with ITP, 7 women had two deliveries and one was twin. Four singleton women did not deliver in our centers, so 129 neonates re- mained for the final analysis. Fifty seven pregnancies from 132 (43.2%) were known cases of ITP before pregnancy and 75 (56.8%) were diagnosed during pregnancy. The mean gestational age at delivery was 266.9±14.7 days (range: 206-294 days). Eighteen women (13.5%) were considered to have preeclamp- sia and 15 (11.3%) were diabetic. Several maternal and neonatal data were presented in Table 1. There were 9 women (6.8%) with PC>150,000/µL. Eight mothers (6%) had mild, 59 (44.4%) had moderate and 56 (42.1%) had severe thrombocytopenia. The platelet counts of 114 neonates were available in the charts. There were 84 neonates (83.2%) with PC≥150,000/µL. Fourteen neonates (10.5%) had mild, 13 (9.8%) moderate and 3 (2.3%) severe thrombocyto- penia, respectively. The 3 neonates with PC<50,000/µL were born from the mothers with ITP prior to pregnan- cy. No neonates had severe bleeding complications and no intracranial hemorrhage occurred. There was no significant correlation between ma- ternal platelet count and neonatal platelet count (p=0.19, r=0.15). Also, there was no statistically sig- nificant correlation between previous splenectomy and neonatal platelet counts at birth (p=0.64). Thirty-one (23.3%) neonates had PTB and 32 (24.1%) infants had NICU admissions. Eight neo- nates (6%) had Apgar Scores below 7 at 5 minutes. There were 2 fetuses that had intrauterine deaths on admission time and were included among the cases with Apgar scores below 7. Seventy four pregnancies Table 1: Several maternal and neonatal features of pregnancies complicated by ITP at the time of delivery. Variable mean±SD Range Maternal age (years) 26.5± 4.8 16-40 Maternal platelet count at delivery (/µL) 62,260±38,642 3,000-200,000 Gestational age at delivery(days) 266.9±14.7 206-294 Neonatal birth weight (grams) 29189±588.36 1150-3900 Neonatal platelet count (/µL) 146,040±60,995 36,000-314,000 WWW.ircmj.com Vol 14 July 2012 431