Have Chronic Idiopathic Leukopenia, Low WBC. If I Wanted To Get Pregnant, What Effect Would It Have On The Child And Pregnancy?

Posted on Tue, 19 Jun 2012

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 Answered on

Sun, 15 Jul 2012 Last reviewed on

Question : I have chronic idiopathic leukopenia. My wbc is typically below 2.5. It has been as low as 2.1 and in the past 3 years as high as 3.4. If I wanted to get pregnant what effect would my leukopenia have on the child and pregnancy? What effect would the pregnancy have on me? It seems that ob/gyn's are not super familiar with a person already having leukopenia prior to pregnancy. Thank you.

Answered by Dr. Ajith Puthillath (11 hours later)

Hello,

Thanks for the query.

Chronic idiopathic leukopenia as the name itself suggests is of unclear etiology. Your numbers of 2.1- 3.4 are not low to be worried to get pregnant.

1. This will not have any effects on pregnancy. If the White blood count gets lower than 1000 cells /cubic mm, you may be at a risk of infection. At your current value, you or the pregnancy would not be affected much.
As planned you can go ahead with pregnancy.

2. Pregnancy is unlikely to have any influence on the while blood counts.

The bottom line is "currently I do not find any contraindications that suggest you to avoid pregnancy".

Hope this answers your query. Let me know if you need any more information.

All the best

AJ

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Prasad