Fetus at Risk
When a pregnant mare develops a problem that puts her fetus at risk, what can be done? Some of these foals can be saved if the problem can be discovered early and the mare given proper treatment to reverse the condition.
Jon Palmer, VMD, associate professor of medicine and director of the neonatal and perinatal programs at the Connelly Intensive Care Unit at New Bolton Center (part of th
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When a pregnant mare develops a problem that puts her fetus at risk, what can be done? Some of these foals can be saved if the problem can be discovered early and the mare given proper treatment to reverse the condition.
Jon Palmer, VMD, associate professor of medicine and director of the neonatal and perinatal programs at the Connelly Intensive Care Unit at New Bolton Center (part of the University of Pennsylvania), deals with many pregnant mares and their problems. “When we talk about high-risk pregnancies, there are two general classifications of mares,” he says. “One group includes mares that are having problems during their current gestations that may compromise the pregnancy–such as a mare with colic or laminitis or something else that interferes with her health and may have an impact on the foal. This group includes mares that may have a placental inflammation or evidence of premature placental separation.
“The other group are mares that had problems in the past,” Palmer adds. “Perhaps in their last few gestations they had foals born with problems, or foals that had problems with placental function near the end of gestation. Those mares are at higher risk of having this again.”
The primary cause for premature labor in the mare is placental disease, and the most common placental disease is infection. Even in human medicine, prematurity in babies is most often caused by placental problems. Whenever there is placentitis (inflammation of the placenta), there is a much higher risk of having the foal delivered early, Palmer says. This occurs most often in older mares; they tend to have more instances of vaginal infection from a tipped vulva. Sometimes there are other problems with older mares–their uteri might have more scarring and the placentas have poor attachment and are not functioning well
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