Hemodilution during pregnancy naturally lowers hemoglobin and hematocrit levels, and a drop in these levels indicates proper physiological adaptation.

“the hemodilution that happens in pregnancy lowers those hemoglobin levels because of the blood diluting throughout the pregnancy so we you know for me i always do what's called an obstetrical panel at the beginning of pregnancy and i get a baseline for what those hemoglobin and hematocrit levels look like and i actually expect a drop you know we want to see those levels drop because if it doesn't drop that tells me that there hasn't been the hemodilution which is a woman's blood doubling because when she gives birth she loses blood and we want to have that doubling of blood so she has those reserves if you will postpartum”