Platelets are important in early wound healing, where they initially stick to damaged blood vessels and then aggregate with one another to form a platelet plug. Excessive bleeding occurs when platelet counts are low or when platelets don’t function well. Dr. Newman’s research has recently focused on the contributions of platelet abnormalities to excessive bleeding in the fetal and neonatal periods when excessive bleeding can have life-long developmental consequences. Fetal/Neonatal Alloimmune Thrombocytopenia (FNAIT) is a disorder that arises when a mother’s immune system recognizes her baby’s platelets as foreign and clears them from the baby’s circulation. Dr. Newman is currently working in collaboration with several investigators at Versiti to investigate who is at highest risk for development of FNAIT, what causes the most severe forms of the disease, when and where during pregnancy the maternal immune response to her baby’s platelets develops, and why the mechanisms that normally ensure maternal tolerance of fetal differences fail in FNAIT. This research is needed to predict who will deliver babies with severe FNAIT so that they can be treated to prevent the most severe forms of the disease and to prevent immunization of mothers who are exposed to fetal differences that can elicit a damaging maternal immune response.