Experience with Epidural Anesthesia in Pregnant Women with Von Willebrand Disease.

Von Willebrand Disease (vWD) is an autosomal dominant inherited bleeding disorder that is characterized by epistaxis, mucosal and postoperative bleeding, menorrhagia and postpartum hemorrhage. In particular, there is a paucity of safety data for, and thus a reluctance to use, epidural anesthesia (EA) for delivery. We thus conducted a review of all women followed with vWD in a referral hemophilia clinic who had ≥ 1 pregnancy. Thirty-three subjects were screened; 31/33 (94%) had type 1 and 2/33 (6%) had type 2A vWD. There were 59 term pregnancies (range 1–3 per patient), and 5 fetal losses (in 4 patients). Of the term pregnancies, 16/59 (27%) were delivered by Caesarian Section (C-Section), complicated by postpartum hemorrhage in 3 (19%); 43/59 (73%) were delivered by normal spontaneous vaginal delivery (NSVD), complicated by hemorrhage in 21 (49%) (p=0.05). EA was administered during 14 (13 with type 1 vWD) of 59 (24%) of the deliveries, all without DDAVP, plama-derived factor VIII-von Willebrand factor containing concentrates or blood products, and in no patient were bleeding complications encountered at the site of EA nor were there any neurologic complications. Conclusion: Postpartum hemorrhage was a common complication in patients with vWD, more after NSVD than C-Section. In a selected subset, EA was safely administered without bleeding complications, possibly due to pregnancy induced increase in factor VIII:C and von Willebrand factor activity counteracting the tendency to bleed. Larger series and prospective studies should be performed to confirm the safety of EA and the relationship to coagulation factor levels in pregnant women with vWD.