Peripartal cardiomyopathy: literature review and clinical case description

Abstract

The cardiovascular system during pregnancy undergoes a number of compensatory and adaptive changes, such as an increase in heart rate, cardiac output and total peripheral resistance, which causes an increase in the load on the myocardium. Peripartum cardiomyopathy is a serious polyetiological complication of pregnancy and the postpartum period, as well as an important cause of disability and mortality for both mother and fetus. The non-specificity of complaints and the paucity of clinical symptoms in the early stages of the disease lead to delayed diagnosis and significantly increase the frequency of unfavorable outcomes. In the article we present our own clinical observation of the acute development of severe peripartum cardiomyopathy in a multipregnant woman at 36 weeks of gestation, complicated by cardiogenic shock and antenatal fetal death.

Keywords

• peripartum cardiomyopathy
• pregnancy
• heart failure
• intrauterine fetal death