These studies aimed at assessing platelet profile in the three trimesters of pregnancy.Subjects were apparently healthy volunteers who were staff, students and antenatal patients of a Hospital in Benin. Platelet profile was assessed using Swelab Alfa Basic model Haematological Analyser (Boule Medical AB, Stockholm, Sweden). The results were presented as mean ± SEM in tables and graphs and analysed using One Way Analysis of Variance and Duncan post Hoc test and p < 0.05 was considered

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... . The study showed that platelet count x 10 3 /µl (277.83 ± 36.33; first trimester > 193.60 ± 13.15; second trimester > 185.50 ± 11.58; third trimester) and plateletcrit in percentage (0.22 ± 0.03; first trimester > 0.17 ± 0.01; second trimester > 0.16 ± 0.01; third trimester) reduced progressively as pregnancy advanced and this was statistically significant (p < 0.05) when compared to control of 276.17 ± 34.32 x10 3 /µl and 0.20 ± 0.20 respectively. A similar pattern was observed for Mean Platelet Volume (MPV). However, Platelet Width Density (PDW) in percentage increased (10.52 ± 0.22; first trimester < 13.44 ± 0.30; second trimester < 13.65 ± 0.41; third trimester) as pregnancy advanced. Thus PDW compensates for these reductions and a lack of this compensatory increase may aggravate the effect of thrombocytopenia in pregnancy. ©JASEM http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jasem.v20i4.21