Anemia

Intrinsic hemolytic anemia develops when the red blood cells produced by your body are defective. This condition is often inherited, such as in people with sickle cell anemia or thalassemia. Some types of hemolytic anemia are hereditary-- specifically spherocytosis. This supports our diagnosis because the patient’s father also had occasional anemia. The hereditary spherocytosis is also more probable because the direct Coombs test was negative. Hemolytic anemias can have positive direct Coombs tests but hereditary spherocytosis would present a negative Coombs test. This negative test means that meaning fetus is not in danger and the mother has not developed antibiodies against fetus’s blood.