ABSTRACT
Primary Antiphospholipid Syndrome (APS) and APS secondary to an autoimmune disease are often difficult to discern and considerable overlap appears to exist between Antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL) and other immunopathologies. Obstetric manifestations of aPL are widely heterogenous. Many studies have addressed the incidence of aPL in women with recurrent early pregnancy loss, and most have concurred that early pregnancy loss is more common in women with aPL. Many autoimmune diseases are associated with an increased incidence of fetal wastage, and both organ and nonorgan specific autoantibodies have been reported to be associated with fetal loss. In cases of clinical "treatment failures", extensive decidual or villous chronic inflammation was present, but not in the prior untreated pregnancies. The potential for transplacental passage of the procoagulant tendency has been reinforced by reports of neonatal stroke, multiple placental vascular thromboses, and disseminated neonatal thrombosis in infants delivered of mothers with aPL.
