STOP, DON'T KILL THAT CHILD!!!

While serving in a hospital during my National Youth Service Corps (NYSC)  days, a lady walked into the hospital and requested for a blood test;  She said she had done it before, but wanted to have it on paper to make it certified. I asked her what she expected the result to be, she said "O negative(-)", she had a very 'special' blood type.

I smiled, collected her blood sample and took it to the serology section of the laboratory and ran the test.
It was as she had said; she was O negative (-). The Chief scientist signed the result and I took it to her.

Before handing over the result to her, I asked if she knew what comes with this 'special' blood type of hers and if she knows the necessary precautions to take and she answered in the negative.

I sat her down, told her that immediately she gets pregnant she should make sure her doctor knows about her blood type.
She asked "why"?  I said "so you can keep having babies, and pregnancy won't be your last". 
She was surprised and said she already got pregnant once but did not have the child.
Immediately I felt really sorry for her. I told her to see my the Chief Scientist. She left the office and that was the last I heard from her.

It's being almost a year since my service,
I had a chat with my friend two weeks ago.
He started by saying " guy, one has to be careful before getting married ooo"  I was like "yea, but why are you saying that , what happened? . He said the wife of his friend was finding it hard to get pregnant and that any time she does, she gets really sick and looses the pregnancy.
I asked if his friend had taken his wife to see a doctor. He said yes, the doctor said she was A negative (-).  I wasn't surprised.  I told my friend, it's either she was pregnant once and didn't take the necessary precaution.

Now, this brings me to the crux of the matter.
The reason why the first lady will have problem or why the second lady is having problem as you might have guessed is because of their blood group.

The blood group according to Wikipedia is a classification of blood based on the presence and absence of antibodies and also the presence or absence of inherited antigenic substance on the surface of red blood cells.

What the above statement simply means is, whichever blood group an individual has, it is based on

*1. The presence and absence of antibodies.*
*2. The presence or absence of inherited antigenic substance.*

*NB* ABO and RHD reflects the antigen present on the red blood cells.

Using this standard of classification, we have *A,B,AB and O*  based  on the ABO and also *+ or-* based on the RHD.

So therefore the blood group an individual could have is:
*A+*
*A-*
*B+*
*B-*

*AB+*
*AB-*
*O+*
*O-*
NB...Antigen causes disease, Antibody fights disease.
  Positive means present, negative means absent
So,

*A+* has antigen A, antigen RHD and also antibody B , that is, it has a soldier that can fight off antigen B but has it's own ability to cause a disease conferred on it by the antigen A and RHD

*A-* has antigen A and antibody B, antibody against RHD but does not have RHD antigen

*B+* has antigen B, antigen RHD and also antibody A.

*B-* has antigen B and antibody A, antibody against RHD, but does not have antigen RHD

*AB+* has antigen A, antigen B ,antigen RHD but does not have any antibody.

*AB-* has  antigen A, antigen B, no antigen RHD but has antibody against RHD

*O+*  has only antigen RHD antigen, but has antibodies A and antibody B

*O-* has no antigen but has antibody against RHD and also antibodies A and B.

I wish I could make it simpler but that is as simple as it gets.

Having established these facts, explaining what will happen to the first lady and what is happening to the second woman  aforementioned is this;

Since the first lady is O negative (-), recall that O negative(-) has no antigen at all but has antibodies A, B and against RHD so that means if she gets pregnant and the child is has the RHD positive, say O positive (+), the lady would produce soldiers (antibodies) that would kill the child.
However this will only happen if the lady is not given *anti-D immunoglobulin* during the  third trimester of her first pregnancy.
So if the first lady probably had a D&C during this period which is mostly unlikeable she will not be able to conceive scientifically, spiritually it might be possible.

For the second woman having difficulty conceiving, remember she is A negative (-) and had not received the *anti-D immunoglobin* injection during her first pregnancy , therefore even if she successfully delivers the first baby, it would be impossible to take in again cause the soldiers in her body would see the pregnancy as a threat, and would therefore kill the fetus.

Having said all these. I believe miracles still happen and the second woman might still conceive.

NB : In pregnancy the most important antigen is the RHD.  The ABO does not matter as the child would have inherited what the both parent contributed to it's DNA.
But inheriting the RHD from one of the parents in contrast to what one of the other parent has would pose a problem.

However in blood transfusion the ABO and RHD are very important.

Courtesy : Emmanuel Okolo, Microbiologist .

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