A 30-year-old woman presented at 35 weeks in her second pregnancy with a history of one episode of convulsion that occurred 30 min prior to presentation and had lasted about 5 min. According to the woman's husband, the convulsion was grand mal in nature, although there was no associated incontinence of urine or faeces. He also stated that she had suffered headaches for the preceding 2 days and had been increasingly clumsy ('bumping into things', 'tripping over' and 'dropping cups') before the convulsion episode.In her first pregnancy, 8 years earlier, she suffered a venous thrombosis of the right femoral and popliteal veins and an associated pulmonary embolism (confirmed by isotope ventilation perfusion scan), at 34 weeks' gestation. She received treatment-dose low molecular weight heparin for the rest of that pregnancy and warfarin postnatally for 1 year.
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