Need a C-section? Protection from blood clot urged

New advice for pregnant women: If you’re getting a C-section, special inflating boots strapped on your legs may lower the risk of a blood clot.

Hospitals already use these compression devices for other major operations, such as hip replacements, and a growing number have begun offering them for at least some of their cesarean deliveries, too.

Now guidelines for the nation’s obstetricians say it’s time to make the step routine for most C-sections, which account for nearly a third of U.S. births.

The new recommendations promise to raise awareness of what is a silent threat not just for pregnant women but for thousands of other people, too: Blood clots in veins that can masquerade as simple leg pain.

Called a DVT, for deep vein thrombosis, this kind of clot usually starts in the leg or groin. But it can kill if it moves up to the lungs, where it’s called a pulmonary embolism.

For more on this story, see the September 8 issue of the Navarre Press or subscribe online.