Heart Disease Complications During Pregnancy

Heart Disease Complications During Pregnancy

Medical advances have enabled many women who have lived past few years due to heart disease now reach reproductive age and may become pregnant. What are the risks they face?

Indeed, life expectancy for women with a heart condition has increased, and this can form a family. However, how much they affect the pregnancy? It depends on the type of heart disease or suffering, the age at which pregnancy occurs and counseling by the obstetrician and the cardiologist about the risks involved in this event.

The specialist added that, globally, the percentage of pregnant women with heart disease diagnosed from 1 to10%. As for the risk involved in conceiving, depends on the classification of the disease, whereupon the following levels of involvement:
    * Grade 1. It brings together patients who have problems developing their daily lives because the disorder does not affect their bodily functions when performing activities.
    * Grade 2. Encompasses those who have difficulty breathing when they go to great lengths.
    * Grade 3. Includes women who have difficulty breathing with small efforts, such as walking or climbing stairs. Those who fall into this category must take account of their status before becoming pregnant, because pregnancy produces changes that can affect your heart.
    * Grade 4. Encompasses those with severe damage to the heart muscle, so that pregnancy is contraindicated because it endangers his life.

Risks
To assess these, we need to analyze various aspects related to the changes of pregnancy, as such, originates in the woman, and this will help both the heart and in the development of pregnancy.

Naturally, during pregnancy there is increased amount of blood circulating volume, resulting in increased cardiac output, i.e., the heart has to work harder to manage this flow. These conditions are at their highest level between 28 to 32 weeks, and if, for example, there is some blockage in valves, this can have an impact on the blood supply to the baby.

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Moreover, evidence shows that there is a risk that the infant is born with a heart problem, especially if the mother’s illness is congenital (birth); also there is increased risk of abortion.

This is associated with the changes that pregnancy itself, entail, affecting more severely patients whose heart is not working 100%.

Know the complications
When it detects that a woman has heart disease, the most important is the multidisciplinary medical advice and support and limit certain efforts to reduce the amount of food eaten and exercise tolerable, such as walking.

At this stage the patient is risky rise much weight because it increases the possibility of preeclampsia is also present or increased blood pressure, which further complicate the heart. And when you consider that around the seventh month of pregnancy increases blood volume, thus may have breathing difficulty or added to any alteration lung area.

In addition, the specialist recognizes that childbirth and puerperium (phase lasts from birth until the end of the standardization of Physiological changes during pregnancy) are the most susceptible stages of complication, by highlighting the importance of which for the moment the mother gives birth, the doctor is assisted by an anesthesiologist, cardiologist, obstetrician (deals with pregnancy, childbirth and puerperium) and a branch of Pediatrics that deals with the infant in its earliest days.

It is important to shorten the period of the expulsion of the product and if possible reduce blood loss to prevent arrhythmia or heart failure, and even some women may develop pulmonary embolism (when a clot moves to the lung and obstructs.

This is seen most frequently during the postpartum period, once the patient is in bed. Moreover, the position in which the legs are placed during childbirth (obstetric position, the woman lies on her back, thighs and knees bent high) can cause blood to pool and clot to move.

Note that the above is safe for all women, but in patients with heart disease triples the risk, hence the importance of dressing tips from half a foot to the thigh. We also recommend the preventive use of antibiotics to prevent any infectious process of the heart muscle in the postpartum period.

This type of situation, fortunately, is rare, especially when you already have diagnosed heart disease. Serious problems arise, rather, when it ignores the presence of the disease.

Proper handling
According to the specialist, the right thing is to make sure if the pregnant woman who suffers from heart problems, as this allows appropriate treatment and monitoring from the beginning. In this sense, it must gynecologist, obstetrician, perinatologist and anesthesiologist work together.

For every uterine contraction there is increased blood flow into the interior ranges from 300 to 400 milliliters, which must take into account to avoid overloading the heart muscle. Thus, it is necessary to reduce the volume of liquid (whey) and that vaginal delivery is made, preventing the second stage of labor is prolonged. Therefore, it requires a specialist who has adequate training and ability to shorten the baby out with forceps (pliers-like instrument that helps in the expulsion of the infant).

However, if the patient undergoes a cesarean increases the risk of experiencing heart failure (inability of the heart to pump blood properly) due to changes in blood flow.

It should be noted that while there are women who have congenital heart problems, the heart resulting from rheumatic fever suffered in childhood. This problem, if not very visible symptoms, often overlooked and only identified in pregnancy, when it is detected murmur (abnormal heart sounds), shortness of breath and bluish discoloration of lips due to lack of oxygenation.

Therefore, it is essential that pregnant women go to prenatal care from early pregnancy to the doctor to rule out any disease or illness that could endanger your life and your future child.

Tagged as: Complications, Disease, During, Heart, Pregnancy