LOS ANGELES, Calif. (Ivanhoe Newswire) – More than three and a half million babies were born in 2022 in the United States. It should be the happiest of times for new parents, yet thousands of women die each year either during pregnancy or in the weeks immediately following the birth due to cardiovascular disease. One doctor is hoping to get women the help they need. Heart Disease in pregnancy.
Your baby’s heartbeat is the sound every expectant mother wants to hear but making sure your unborn baby’s heart is healthy should not be your only concern.
UCI Health Ob/Gyn, Dr. Afshan Hameed, MD says, “The biggest contributing factors that led to the maternal death were lack of awareness and lack of recognition of symptoms.”
Because pregnancy symptoms and cardiovascular symptoms often overlap, many times the warning signs are ignored. That’s why a new national study is using a risk-assessment tool to diagnose cardiovascular disease during pregnancy.
“If the patient is complaining of shortness of breath or chest pain, pay attention. If there are vital sign abnormalities, like heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen, pay attention,” Dr. Hameed emphasizes.
The algorithm looks at 18 risk factors.
Dr. Hameed explains, “This algorithm was applied to those 64 patients who had died, and we would’ve detected 93% of them as being high risk for cardiovascular disease.”
Now, a current study funded by the NIH is underway to screen 3,000 pregnant women.
“It literally takes about 30 seconds to just make a few clicks and you know if the patient is high risk or not,” Dr. Hameed adds.
A few questions asked in less than a minute could be time well spent saving a new mother’s life.
The risk-assessment tool is already becoming standard of care in Georgia, Pennsylvania, and some areas of California and New York. Dr. Hameed hopes to create an even simpler standardized national screening tool with fewer questions to make it more user friendly so it could be applied to every pregnant woman everywhere.
Contributors to this news report include: Marsha Lewis, Producer; Roque Correa, Videographer & Editor.
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Sources:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/births.htm
MEDICAL BREAKTHROUGHS
RESEARCH SUMMARY
TOPIC: EARLY DETECTION OF HEART DISEASE IN PREGNANCY
REPORT: MB #5149
BACKGROUND: Thousands of women died up three weeks after their pregnancy in the U.S. in the year 2022 due to cardiovascular diseases. Many cardiac diseases during pregnancy are still not understood or still under many studies. Some pre existing reasons that can cause cardiovascular diseases in pregenant owmen are: hypertension, diabetes, and congenital heart diseases. The evaluation of cardiovascular diseases in women that are pregant demands up to date workup.
(Source:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK537261/
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/births.htm
DIAGNOSING: A history of pre existing conditions is crucial when diagnosing cardiovascular diseases in pregnant women. Diagnosing the different heart conditions in women can be difficult but understanding the history of side effects and health issues can help. Previous features that could mean heart disease in pregnant women could include: trouble breathing,dyspnea on exertion, paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnea, orthopnea, increasing edema, chest pain or angina, lightheadedness, syncope, and a family history of familial history of heart disease occurring in pregnancies. Physical examinations would take place if heart disease is suspected in pregnancy.
(Source:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK537261/
NEW TECHNOLOGY: A new study by the NIH is underway that can screen up to 3,000 pregnant women. It consists of algorithms that use an electronic medical recording system. This serves as a “red banner” system when one enters a pregnancy and takes only 30 seconds to know if a pregnant women is at high risk or not. This new algorithm uses this danger test to diagnose a cardiovascular disease in women by looking at 18 different risk factors. It will automatically flag all women at risk by connecting with their health record electronically.
(Source:
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THIS REPORT, PLEASE CONTACT:
John Murray
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