• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Women Deserve Better

Women Deserve Better: For us, that means better information, better support, and better choices. Life brings challenges. We bring empowerment, because we’ll never underestimate women.

  • Work
    • Find a Job
    • Build a Career
    • Take Maternity Leave
    • Thrive As a Working Parent
    • Know Your Rights at Work
  • Learn
    • Earn Your Degree As a Parent
    • Know Your Rights on Campus
    • Finance Your Education
    • Medical Care for Student Moms
    • Housing for Student Parents
    • Child Care While You’re In Class
  • Live
    • Child Care
    • Feeding Your Family
    • Housing
    • Clothes
    • Medical Care
    • Getting Around
    • Money Matters
    • Special Needs
    • Fun
  • Love
    • Fathers
    • Your Parents
    • Adoption
    • Support Networks
  • About
    • Our Mission
    • Contributors
  • Shop
  • Support Us
  • Donate
  • Home

Taking Your Cardiac Health to Heart

November 18, 2019 by Bethanie Ryan

woman getting her blood pressure taken

Maternal mortality has been in the news over the past few years because it appears its incidence may be rising in the U.S. 

While part of the documented rise is artifactual because we are doing a better job of detecting maternal deaths, it is true that many older women with pre-existing health problems are becoming pregnant, and this may place them at higher risk for adverse events. The rates of obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and other serious medical illnesses are increasing in women, and these may cause a pregnancy to be at higher risk of complications, such as preeclampsia, hemorrhage, and thromobotic disease (such as pulmonary embolus, deep venous thrombosis, or stroke). In addition, artificial reproductive technologies allow women to become pregnant at older ages than was previously possible. The CDC has documented that 20 percent of maternal deaths occur in women older than 45 years of age.

Many of these deaths are related to cardiac events, and that may cause women to worry. 

This article about a woman pregnant with twins who experienced two heart attacks demonstrates such a case. A “heart attack” is a common expression for cardiac damage usually related to the inability of the heart to obtain adequate blood flow. While heart attacks in older Americans are often due to vessel blockage from atherosclerosis (plaques), in younger women it usually isn’t caused by that. It may be initiated by a spasm in a blood vessel, an arrhythmia that keeps the heart from pumping properly, an obstetric emergency such as massive blood loss that depletes the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood, or sometimes from a pre-existing heart defect, often one that a woman was born with. 

The advances in surgical techniques to repair complex congenital heart defects has allowed many affected female infants to grow into adulthood where they may have higher risks if they should become pregnant.

Women do not need to fear pregnancy and childbirth. Awareness is improving about these problems, and doctors have experience in managing each of these emergency situations. 

An entire obstetrics subspecialty, maternal-fetal medicine, is devoted to managing high-risk pregnancies so that both a woman and her child can be safely delivered. 

If a woman had a congenital defect repaired as a child, she should obtain a preconceptual consultation from a cardiologist to see if the hemodynamic changes that will occur during pregnancy may place her at risk. She should follow the cardiologist’s recommendations throughout the pregnancy. 

It is rare that a woman has a heart defect so severe that she should not attempt to become pregnant, but if she does, her physicians will undoubtedly have warned her about this.

If a woman develops a severe condition, such as preeclampsia, during pregnancy that threatens her heart, obstetricians have much experience managing this complication. 

If she is being cared for in a community hospital, her OB may arrange transfer to a higher level facility that has more experience and equipment available to care for her and her baby. 

Sometimes, the problem arises during delivery, such as an obstetric hemorrhage. 

Hospitals have emergency checklists and conduct periodic drills so that they will be able to quickly manage emergencies in order to keep women safe.

By Ingrid Skop, M.D.

Filed Under: Live, Medical Care Tagged With: heart disease, maternal mortality, prenatal health

Primary Sidebar

Suggested Articles

Health Insurance 101

Keeping Up with Your Prenatal Health

What is Prenatal Care?

fb-share-icon

Footer

This message is only visible to admins.
PPCA Error: Due to Facebook API changes it is no longer possible to display a feed from a Facebook Page you are not an admin of. The Facebook feed below is not using a valid Access Token for this Facebook page and so has stopped updating.

neverunderestimatewomen

Check out "Learn the Basics of Unemployment Benefi Check out "Learn the Basics of Unemployment Benefits," courtesy of Women Deserve Better Expert and legal aid attorney Susan Schoppa.
https://www.womendeservebetter.com/learn-the-basics-of...

 #womendeservebetter
A woman out of work recently sent us the following A woman out of work recently sent us the following email. We wanted to share her thoughts with you:
The most common feelings I experience as an unemployed job seeker: 
1. Rejection/Sorrow. Something is wrong with me… because it cannot be that I don't have more than the required training or education or experience... so it must be me.
2. Anxiety from inadequacy of effort. Something would come along if I just tried harder (more than daily searches, weekly job clubs, outreaches on LinkedIn, etc.).
3. Aloneness. Other people with fewer skills, less education and experience… are getting jobs. They won't understand how alone I am in this. Other people must have a lot of resources to not have to work for this long, and I am barely making it and can't afford things now. I am alone in this.
4. Hopelessness. Scores of applications and letters to employers have gone unanswered for weeks and now months. What's the use?
5. Blaming myself and/or self-doubt. Why didn't I see the writing on the wall and find something while I still had a job? I guess I really am as stupid as these employers think I am.
6. Confusion. I am now out of my routine, so things don't fall into place like they once did. Am I getting dementia? Is this normal?
7. Anger. If my employer thought I was so great to give me a very good review several years in a row, why haven't they told me of other available jobs after this one ended? Shame on them!
8. Embarrassment. People may think I lost my job because I was a marginal or lazy employee. They don't know how hard I worked, and that the termination was due to issues not of my doing. They may see me as someone who deserved this.
9. Fear. What if I can't find a job in time before we lose our place to live?
10. Happiness. It can be a good thing to start over sometimes.
Have you ever felt like this woman? Please know that there is help. Check out our latest article on Women Deserve Better, "Find Help When You Can’t Find a Job":
https://www.womendeservebetter.com/find-help-when-

#WomenDeserveBetter
Are you struggling to pay your rent or mortgage? A Are you struggling to pay your rent or mortgage? Are you worried about losing your home? Here is some information about what could happen if you can't pay all of your rent or mortgage, courtesy of Women Deserve Better Expert and legal aid attorney Susan Schoppa.

www.womendeservebetter.com/how-to-find-legal-help-for-evictions-and-foreclosures 

#WomenDeserveBetter
Load More... Follow on Instagram
Thanks for signing up!

GET OUR LATEST NEWS

ABOUT

  • Our Mission
  • Contributors

SUPPORT US

  • Donate
  • Become a Partner
  • Share Your Story or Your Expertise
  • Promote Women Deserve Better

Women Deserve Better: For us, that means better information, better support, and better choices. Life brings challenges. We bring empowerment, because we’ll never underestimate women.

Copyright © 2021 — Feminists for Life of America • All rights reserved.