RN Midwives, please point me in the right direction!

[stevierae]

I have done several hours of on-line research and can't find anything related to this subject; have looked under pregnancy, pregnancy related leukocytosis, falsely elevated WBC count, etc.

Situation: OB doc told someone he did not pick up on an infection (with respective elevated WBC count) (unrelated to pregnancy; patient did fine) in a G2P1 patient at 26 weeks gestation because "high WBC count is common in women at this point in a pregnancy."

I have never heard this, and I worked L&D for a few years, but that does not mean it isn't true. If anyone has witnessed this phenomenon, and/or can point me to related articles describing the pathophysiology, I would very much appreciate it. Will return the favor if you have questions related to the operating room!

[wsiab]

Not uncommon to have a slightly elevated WBC count. Over 15,000 is considered abnormal according to AWHONN Perinatal Nursing (Lippincott, 1996).

[stevierae]

Thank you for the responsce. After spending several fruitless hours on Ovid and Medline, and finding only a couple of references to pregnancy induced leukocytosis--ONE IN JAPANESE, ONE IN HEBREW--I went to Google, where I found several. Best article was by an OB doc named Andrew Chang, who stated that high WBC count during pregnancy was common, and that a WBC up to 25,000 was not at all uncommon during labor.

Tahnks again.