Monique's Story

In our quest to share the experience of Alloimmunized moms, Bethany interviewed Monique Kinney, a contributor to the Allo Hope Foundation. Monique founded the premier Facebook support group for Alloimmunized moms before the Allo Hope Foundation was started in 2019. 

Episode themes: 

• Monique’s proactive discovery of her Anti-E antibody status
• The Bad Number
• Advice for post-birth
• Mid-Pregnancy Postpartum Anxiety
• Advocacy against hospital policy
• Being your baby’s medical record

Terminology used in this episode: 

• Antibody Evanescence: The waning of antibodies over time following an exposure to the immunized antigen. Once a patient develops antibodies, the antibodies never truly disappear. Fewer than 30% of antibodies are estimated to be detectable by current methods.
• Antibody Boostering: When an antibody undetectable during cross-matching is suddenly detectable again. Antibody boostering happens in patients who were earlier found to have alloantibodies, but then experienced antibody evanescence. Boostering can result in the antibodies coming back in an anamnestic manner, including hyperhemolysis.

Allo Hope Terminology Library https://allohopefoundation.org/library/terminology/

Guests: Monique Kinney 

Links mentioned in this episode: 

Facebook support group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/antibodiesinpregnancy

Mari et al. paper discussing 12% false positive rate for MCA scans: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejm200001063420102

Research for this episode provided by Bethany Weathersby, Molly Sherwood, and Monique Kinney of the Allo Hope Foundation. Find more information at https://allohopefoundation.org/

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