Small Amount of Bloody Discharge in Pregnant Mare?

[Montanas_Girl]

Obviously I’ll put a call in to my vet first thing in the morning, but I was hoping someone here would have some insight, experience, or reassurance to offer.

My broodmare is almost 7 months along. She is 13 years old, and this is her 4th pregnancy. This afternoon while grooming her, I noticed that she had a bit (maybe a couple tablespoons?) of bloody discharge from her vulva. The blood was very dark and slighty clumpy/clotted. She’s eating, drinking, and behaving normally. She is not showing any udder development, and her vital signs are normal.

I did a search in the EquineRepro group on Facebook and found one reference to varicose veins. Has anyone else experienced this?

(As a side note, I really like the feature on this new forum platform that pops up a list of similar topics when you start a new one. I found one thread from 2011 referencing bloody discharge, but that was in a near term mare.)

[Montanas_Girl]

It looks like a lot of people have viewed this topic, but no one replied. I’ll take that to mean that this was a new one to a lot of you, too. So, it did turn out to be a burst varicose vein in the vaginal wall. The vet said this is actually not uncommon in older, multi-parous mares, though it was new to me. Arielle’s cervix is tightly closed, and the fetus and placenta both look healthy. Baby was very active during the ultrasound. The bleeding will probably continue intermittently throughout the pregnancy and delivery. If it gets worse, ligating the vessel is an option, but otherwise it’s just “one of those things”. Learn something new every day!