Heart disease symptoms during pregnancy

During this period, we cannot rule out the possibility that problems may occur in certain organs of the body, which may have a great impact on the body, so heart disease is likely to occur. Pregnant women may suffer from heart failure or even damaged heart function after heart disease. Pulmonary edema and heart failure cannot be ruled out. Under normal circumstances, the harm is very great and needs to be adjusted as soon as possible, and appropriate methods of care should be chosen.

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.