Signs and symptoms of heart disease during pregnancy

Many pregnant women suffer from pregnancy-related heart disease, but most people are not aware of this disease. Pregnancy-related heart disease is a serious obstetric complication and the main cause of maternal mortality. During pregnancy, the uterus enlarges and the blood volume increases, which increases the burden on the heart. During delivery, the contraction of the uterus and skeletal muscles throughout the body causes a large amount of blood to rush to the heart. The increase in circulating blood volume after delivery can easily cause heart failure in a diseased heart. Therefore, pregnancy heart disease is a very serious disease. Let us now understand the symptoms and signs of pregnancy heart disease.

Symptoms and signs

1. Heart failure: If the heart function of patients with heart disease is already impaired or barely compensated, the heart function may be further decompensated due to pregnancy. In pregnant women with rheumatic heart disease, heart failure is manifested as:

(1) Pulmonary blood loss: This is more common in mitral valve disease. The patient is short of breath, which is worse after exertion. There are fine moist rales at the base of both lungs. X-ray examination shows interstitial edema.

(2) Acute pulmonary edema: It is more common in severe mitral stenosis. It is caused by high blood volume which increases pulmonary artery pressure. Patients suddenly become short of breath, cannot lie flat, cough, and cough up foamy sputum or blood. There are scattered wheezing or moist rales in both lungs.

(3) Right heart failure: It is common in older people, those with significant heart enlargement, atrial fibrillation, reduced labor force, or a history of heart failure, pregnant women with congenital heart disease, patent ductus arteriosus, atrial septal defect, ventricular septal defect, etc. with pulmonary hypertension, which often leads to right heart failure; pulmonary valve stenosis and tetralogy of Fallot, due to excessive pressure load on the right ventricle, often manifest as right heart failure.

(4) Aortic valve stenosis may lead to left heart failure due to excessive pressure load on the left ventricle.

2. Infective endocarditis: Both rheumatic heart disease and congenital heart disease may be complicated by infective endocarditis due to bacteremia. If not controlled in time, it may induce heart failure and cause death.

3. Hypoxia and cyanosis: In cyanotic congenital heart disease, hypoxia and cyanosis occur at normal times. During pregnancy, peripheral resistance is low and cyanosis worsens. For pregnant women with non-cyanotic congenital heart disease or left-to-right shunt, if their blood pressure drops due to blood loss or other reasons, it may cause temporary reverse shunt, that is, right-to-left shunt, thereby causing cyanosis and hypoxia.

4. Embolism: During pregnancy, the blood is in a hypercoagulable state. Coupled with the increased venous pressure and venous blood stasis associated with heart disease, embolism is prone to occur. The thrombus may come from the pelvic cavity, causing pulmonary embolism, increasing the pulmonary circulation pressure, thereby stimulating pulmonary edema, or reversing the left-to-right shunt to a right-to-left shunt. If it is a congenital heart disease with left-right heart cavity communication, the thrombus may pass through the defect and cause peripheral arterial embolism.

After a detailed introduction to the symptoms and signs of gestational heart disease, I believe everyone must have a better understanding of gestational heart disease. This type of disease has serious effects and harms on pregnant women. If women suffer from the above diseases, they must go to a regular hospital in time to consult relevant expert doctors for treatment and seek scientific treatment methods to ensure safety and health during pregnancy.