Pregnancy & Glanzmann Thrombasthenia: What a New 2026 Study Found

Pregnancy can require additional planning for women with inherited bleeding disorders, including Glanzmann’s Thrombasthenia (GT). A new 2026 study published in SAGE Open Medicine provides additional data on maternal, fetal, and neonatal outcomes among women with inherited bleeding disorders.

The study found higher rates of maternal bleeding complications and fetal/neonatal mortality among women with inherited bleeding disorders compared with matched controls. However, only seven women in the study had Glanzmann’s Thrombasthenia, so the overall results should not be interpreted as GT-specific risks.

What Did the Study Examine?

Researchers reviewed pregnancy outcomes at a tertiary referral center in Iran between January 2010 and December 2020.

The study included:

• 81 pregnancies among women with confirmed inherited bleeding disorders
• 162 matched control pregnancies without documented bleeding disorders
• 243 pregnancies total

The researchers evaluated stillbirth and intrauterine fetal death, neonatal death, NICU admission, intrauterine growth restriction, neonatal blood transfusion, postpartum bleeding, postpartum hemorrhage, and the use of hemostatic interventions.

The inherited bleeding disorders represented included von Willebrand disease, hemophilia A and B-related disorders or carrier status, inherited factor deficiencies, Glanzmann’s Thrombasthenia, and other bleeding disorders.

What Were the Pregnancy Outcomes?

Researchers found significantly higher fetal and neonatal mortality in the overall inherited bleeding disorder group.

Stillbirth or intrauterine fetal death:
11.1% among pregnancies involving inherited bleeding disorders, compared with 0.6% among controls.

Neonatal death:
7.4% compared with 0.6% among controls.

Combined fetal/neonatal mortality:
18.5% compared with 1.2% among controls.

However, NICU admission did not increase significantly, and intrauterine growth restriction occurred at the same rate (1.2%) in both groups.

These findings require careful interpretation. The researchers could not consistently determine the causes of fetal or neonatal deaths and specifically state that the study cannot establish that inherited bleeding disorders caused the increased mortality.

How Common Was Bleeding During and After Pregnancy?

Maternal bleeding was an important finding.

Among the 81 women with inherited bleeding disorders:

• 25.9% experienced postpartum bleeding
• 14.8% experienced postpartum hemorrhage
• 10% developed a surgical-site hematoma

Hemostatic support was also common.

Approximately 77.8% received at least one hemostatic intervention during pregnancy, delivery, or postpartum. Factor concentrate was the most frequently documented intervention, followed by tranexamic acid, fresh frozen plasma, and platelet transfusion.

Importantly, the researchers could not consistently determine whether these therapies were given preventively or to treat active bleeding. The results therefore should not be used to compare the effectiveness of individual treatments.

What Does the Study Tell Us About Glanzmann Thrombasthenia?

This is where an important distinction needs to be made.

Only 7 of the 80 women with an available specific diagnosis had Glanzmann Thrombasthenia, representing 8.8% of the diagnosed study population.

The study did not provide separate pregnancy outcomes for those seven women.

Therefore, statistics such as the 18.5% combined fetal/neonatal mortality rate or 14.8% postpartum hemorrhage rate should not be presented as the risk for a woman with GT.

The researchers themselves identified this as a limitation. The small overall sample and small number of adverse outcomes made reliable analysis by individual bleeding disorder impossible.

Why Can Glanzmann Thrombasthenia Affect Pregnancy and Delivery?

Glanzmann Thrombasthenia is an inherited platelet function disorder. The study notes an important distinction between platelet disorders and some other inherited bleeding disorders.

Pregnancy normally creates changes that make the blood more likely to clot. However, in inherited platelet disorders, these changes do not correct the underlying platelet adhesion or aggregation defect. Bleeding risk can therefore persist despite otherwise normal coagulation measurements.

This is one reason pregnancy and delivery planning for someone with GT needs to be individualized rather than based on a single approach for all inherited bleeding disorders.

Does Glanzmann Thrombasthenia Make Pregnancy Unsafe?

This study does not establish that pregnancy is unsafe for women with Glanzmann Thrombasthenia.

It shows that inherited bleeding disorders as a group were associated with increased maternal bleeding complications and fetal/neonatal mortality within this particular tertiary-center population.

Because only seven women had GT and GT-specific outcomes were not reported, the study cannot determine the individual risk of stillbirth, neonatal death, postpartum hemorrhage, or other complications specifically for women with GT.

How Should Pregnancy With Glanzmann Thrombasthenia Be Managed?

The study supports a coordinated and individualized approach to pregnancy in people with inherited bleeding disorders.

The authors recommend:

• Preconception counseling when possible
• Early recognition of the bleeding disorder
• Coordinated antenatal planning
• Individualized delivery management
• Access to appropriate hemostatic therapy
• Structured assessment of the newborn

The study also cautions against interpreting its high cesarean delivery rate as evidence that cesarean delivery is safer or preferable for inherited bleeding disorders. Delivery decisions should instead be individualized.

What Are the Limitations of This Research?

Several limitations are particularly important to consider when discussing these findings with the GT community.

The study was retrospective and conducted at a single tertiary referral center, which may see more complicated cases than the general population. The sample included only 81 pregnancies with inherited bleeding disorders, and maternal age remained somewhat imbalanced after matching.

Researchers also lacked consistent information about the specific causes of fetal and neonatal deaths. Early pregnancy losses before 20 weeks were not systematically captured, meaning the study was not designed to determine miscarriage risk.
Most importantly for GT, the small number of women with each individual disorder prevented reliable disorder-specific analysis.

What Is the Main Takeaway for the GT Community?

This research adds valuable information about pregnancy and inherited bleeding disorders, but its findings should not be interpreted as predicting the outcome of an individual pregnancy with Glanzmann Thrombasthenia.

For the GT community, perhaps the most important finding is the continued need for individualized, multidisciplinary pregnancy care involving obstetric and hematology teams familiar with inherited bleeding disorders.

The authors also call for prospective, multicenter research capable of separating outcomes by individual disorder. Better GT-specific pregnancy data would allow patients, families, and healthcare teams to understand risks more accurately rather than relying on combined data from many different inherited bleeding disorders.

Study: Pregnancy outcomes among women with inherited bleeding disorders: A matched case-control study
Published: SAGE Open Medicine, August 2026
DOI: 10.1177/20503121261483983