Normally the placenta is forced out of a mother’s body soon after delivery of the fetus by uterine contractions. If the uterus does not undergo these contractions properly, hindering the expulsion of the placenta, or if only part of the placenta is ejected, serious hemorrhaging may develop. Severe bleeding may also occur if the placenta prematurely separates from the uterus, a medical emergency known as abruptio placentae. The fetus and mother may both be endangered when abruption occurs if adequate intervention is not undertaken. The causes of many cases of abruptio placentate are never able to be identified, though there are several risk factors for abruption, including trauma, cigarette smoking, drug use, hypertension, thrombophilia, and chorioamnionitis.

A rat placenta tissue section (presented above) was stained with Texas Red conjugated to wheat germ agglutinin, a plant-derived lectin that targets the Golgi apparatus, as well as Alexa Fluor 488 conjugated to phalloidin for cytoskeletal actin. Cell nuclei were labeled with Hoechst 33342. Images were recorded in grayscale with a 12-bit digital camera coupled to a Nikon Eclipse 80i microscope equipped with bandpass emission fluorescence filter optical blocks. During the processing stage, individual image channels were pseudocolored with RGB values corresponding to each of the fluorophore emission spectral profiles.