{"id":1229,"date":"2021-06-09T20:21:55","date_gmt":"2021-06-09T20:21:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/?page_id=1229"},"modified":"2025-05-11T00:06:06","modified_gmt":"2025-05-11T00:06:06","slug":"pregnancy-giving-birth","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/pregnancy-giving-birth\/","title":{"rendered":"Pregnancy &#038; Heart Valve Disease: 15 Important Facts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Patients with mild, moderate and severe heart valve disease are often confused about the realities of getting and\/or staying pregnant.<\/p>\n<p>To address the common misconceptions and learn the important facts about valvular disorders and giving birth, we interviewed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/surgeons\/dr-Joanna-Chikwe-Los+Angeles-California.php\">Dr. Joanna Chikwe<\/a>, the Chair of Cardiac Surgery, and <a href=\"https:\/\/bio.cedars-sinai.org\/tompkinsr1\/index.html\">Dr. Rose Tompkins<\/a>, the Associate Director of the Adult Congenital Heart Program, at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/hospital\/cedars-sinai-heart-institute\">Cedars-Sinai Medical Center<\/a> in Los Angeles, California.\u00a0 Here are the highlights of this special interview:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yiijz5b3wiM\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Key Learnings from Dr. Chikwe and Dr. Tompkins<\/h2>\n<p>Dr. Chikwe and Dr. Tompkins shared many important insights in this video. Here are key learnings for patients and their partners to consider:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Pregnancy is often considered &#8220;Nature&#8217;s Stress Test&#8221;.\u00a0 The reason is that cardiac output will increase 100% during a pregnancy to keep the mother healthy and provide the nutrients required for fetus development.\u00a0 That said, it is critically important that a mother is and remains healthy before and during a pregnancy.<\/li>\n<li>For patients with heart valve disease&#8230; The use of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cedars-sinai.org\/programs\/obstetrics-maternity\/newly-pregnant\/prenatal-diagnosis.html\">Preconception Counseling<\/a> with a cardiologist can help a family plan and manage all facets of a pregnancy. The goal of an effective Preconception Counseling program is to &#8220;optimize&#8221; the pregnancy relative to a heart valve disorder and provide multiple, monitoring benchmarks to guide a safe and healthy pregnancy.<\/li>\n<li>The potential impact of heart valve disease on a pregnancy varies from the perspectives of a heart surgeon and a cardiologist. For Dr. Chikwe, a heart surgeon, one of her concerns is specific to the utility of appropriate heart valve replacement devices. For example, Dr. Chikwe&#8217;s research suggests that female patients who receive a mechanical valve replacement are more likely to lose their child during pregnancy compared to women who had (i) a heart valve repair or (ii) a tissue valve replacement.\u00a0 For Dr. Tompkins, her concerns are managing and optimizing the pregnancy to avoid any miscarriages or interventions for the patient and\/or the child during pregnancy.<\/li>\n<li>Pregnant mothers with heart valve disease need to be carefully monitored throughout the pregnancy.\u00a0 There are risks for mothers with heart valve disease including, but not limited to, heart failure, diuresis, going on bed rest, pre-mature delivery and abnormal heart rhythms (e.g <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/atrial-fibrillation\/\">atrial fibrillation<\/a>).<\/li>\n<li>The Cedars-Sinai Medical Center has many success stories delivering healthy children by parents diagnosed with heart valve disorders including aortic stenosis and mitral regurgitation. To support patients who want to get pregnant, Cedars-Sinai has committed extensive resources and hired world-renowned experts to research heart valve disease, pregnancy and women&#8217;s health.\u00a0 Newly launched initiatives at Cedars-Sinai include the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cedars-sinai.org\/programs\/heart\/clinical\/womens-heart.html\">Barbara Streisand Women&#8217;s Heart Center<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cedars-sinai.org\/programs\/heart\/clinical\/congenital-heart-disease.html\">Guerin Family Congenital Heart Program<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>A key misconception for female patients with heart valve disease is that they cannot get pregnant.\u00a0 For this reason, patients are often surprised to learn they are indeed pregnant. For that reason, Dr. Tompkins recommends contraception to patients who are not attempting to or planning to get pregnant.<\/li>\n<li>For heart valve patients who want to get pregnant at some point in their lives, Dr. Chikwe&#8217;s best piece of advice is to get a heart valve repair if possible.\u00a0 There are several reasons for this: patients will keep their own tissue, less risk of infection, reduced risk of stroke, the natural architecture of the patient&#8217;s valve is retained, longer durability, and freedom from re-operation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Thanks Dr. Chikwe, Dr. Tompkins &amp; Cedars-Sinai!<\/h2>\n<p>Many thanks to Dr. Chikwe and Dr. Tompkins for taking the time to share these important insights from their clinical experiences and research specific to heart valve disease and pregnancy.\u00a0 An additional thanks goes to Cedars-Sinai for making this topic such an important part of their cardiac care offerings for patients.<\/p>\n<p>Related Links:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2014\/11\/08\/mechanical-valve-pregnancy\/\">Shannon Delivers Baby Ava with Mechanical Valve Replacement <\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/surgeons\/dr-Joanna-Chikwe-Los+Angeles-California.php\">See Dr. Chikwe&#8217;s Interactive Surgeon Profile<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/bio.cedars-sinai.org\/tompkinsr1\/index.html\">Visit Dr. Tompkins Profile at Cedars-Sinai Website<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/hospital\/cedars-sinai-heart-institute\">Explore the Cedars-Sinai Heart Valve Microsite<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Keep on tickin!<br \/>\nAdam<\/p>\n<p>P.S. For the hearing impaired members of our community, I have provided a written transcript of this video below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"cms.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"class_list":["post-1229","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","category-adams-updates"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1229"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5616,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1229\/revisions\/5616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}