Cardiovascular disease in pregnancy.

Heart disease is the most important nonobstetric cause of maternal death; however, most young women with heart disease do well during pregnancy. If the physician is uncertain of the effects of pregnancy on a particular heart condition, needless restrictions may be imposed. The main hazards are: pulmonary edema when it occurs suddenly in mitral stenosis; pulmonary hypertension (because pulmonary vascular disease tends to be exacerbated by pregnancy); infective endocarditis (this is rare); and fulminating peripartum cardiomyopathy. The practical management of the pregnant patient with various concomitant heart conditions (congenital heart disease, pulmonary hypertension, rheumatic heart disease, anticoagulants and artificial valves, constrictive pericarditis, kyphoscoliosis, Marfan's syndrome, mitral prolapse, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, dilated cardiomyopathy, infective endocarditis, and arrhythmias) is discussed. An absolute indication for therapeutic abortion is severe pulmonary vascular disease; discretionary indications include 'chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension,' cardiomyopathies (depending on the hemodynamic disturbance), and Marfan's syndrome.