Von Willebrand disease (VWD) is the most common inherited bleeding disorder. Patients are subject to defective platelet adhesion and aggregation that characteristically presents as mucosal bleeding. Women with VWD face bleeding risks during pregnancy, delivery, and the postpartum period. The female module of the Universal Data Collection system provides an excellent resource for analyzing the characteristics of women with VWD who experienced pregnancy-related bleeding, including bleeding during miscarriage, antepartum bleeding, and postpartum hemorrhage. We hypothesized that there are characteristics that are common to women with VWD who are likely to experience pregnancy-related bleeding complications. We compared the characteristics of women with VWD who have experienced these complications to those of women with VWD who have been pregnant but have not had these complications. We then built a multivariable regression model for the purpose of identifying women with VWD who are at increased risk for pregnancy-related bleeding. We found that there are two risk factors that are associated with pregnancy-related bleeding in this group, 1) a history of anemia (OR 4.94), and 2) a history of bleeding symptoms (OR 1.36). Our results indicate that more attention needs to be paid to the manner in which providers take a bleeding history, and the instruments used. We propose that the best care is provided for these women when obstetricians and hematologists work together in a proactive approach.

Proceedings of the Sixth biennial conference of the International Biogeography Society, an international and interdisciplinary society contributing to the advancement of all studies of the geography of nature. Held at Miami, Florida, USA, 9 – 13 January 2013.

Abstracts include:

(i) the Opening, MacArthur & Wilson Award and Alfred Russel Award Plenary Lectures;

(ii) four symposia entitled "Island Biogeography: New Syntheses", "Beyond Bergmann: New perspectives on the biogeography of traits", "The Convergence of Conservation Paleontology and Biogeography" and "Predicting species and biodiversity in a warmer world: are we doing a good job?";

(iii) oral presentations from contributed papers on Phylogeography, Marine Biogeography, Biogeography of the Anthropocene, Hot Topics in biogeography, Island Biogeography, Neotropical Biogeography, Global Change Biogeography, Historical and Paleo-biogeography, Conservation Biogeography and Global-Scale Biogeography; and

(iv) contributions presented as posters on Phylogeography, Geospatial techniques and land cover, Biodiversity gradients and macroecology, Biogeography of traits, Island Biogeography, Neotropical Biogeography, Conservation Biogeography, Disturbance and Disease Biogeography, Climate Change Biogeography and Historical and Paleo-Biogeography.