The Rh Factor

The mysterious Rh factor-in human blood had disturbed the serenity of many a mother-to-be. For if a wife's blood were Rh negative and a husband's Rh positive, their child might be stillborn, or born with erythroblastosis fetalis, characterized by anemia and jaundice.

What happens is that the baby's red blood cells which contain the Rh factor become mixed in some unknown way with the Rh negative blood of the mother. Result: to combat the invading cells, her tissues produce destructive antibodies. These then diffuse back into the unborn child's blood stream, attacking the blood cells, causing the disease.

Last week, at a convention of pediatricians in Skytop, Pa., Dr. Louis K. Diamond, 44-year-old assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard, and Dr. Neva M. Abelson of Philadelphia, reported on recent studies of the Rh factor, disclosed the heartening news that it was no cause for panic. Some conclusions:

Twelve percent of U.S. marriages unite Rh-plus men and Rh-minus women, but only one out of 18 such marriages develops trouble due to Rh incompatibilities.

The disease affects only one in about 150 to 200 newborn.

The first-born is rarely affected, because it takes at least one pregnancy and sometimes more before a sufficient degree of sensitivity develops in the mother to harm the child.

As a result of special new tests developed under Dr. Diamond at the Boston Blood Grouping Laboratory, physicians can state with certainty whether the mother has been sensitized and has cause for alarm. If necessary, the baby can be delivered before normal birth, or given transfusions soon after birth with exactly matched blood.

* So-called because it was first discovered in rhesus monkeys, by the late Dr. Karl Landsteiner and Dr. Alexander S. Wiener.

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