Complete Heart Block in Pregnancy: A Report of Emergency Caesarean Section in a Parturient without Pacemaker

Abstract

Management of women with Complete Heart Block (CHB) presenting without pacing, during pregnancy and labour is debatable. Temporary pacemakers have been routinely inserted for labour and birth probably to withstand any haemodynamic variations. However, due to lack of large scale prospective studies, the necessity of this procedure has not been objectively assessed. Also, the most appropriate anaesthetic technique for caesarean section in women with CHB is yet to be clarified. We report herein the case of a pregnant woman with CHB who had uneventful emergency caesarean delivery under spinal anaesthesia without temporary pacing. She was an unbooked case detected with congenital CHB first time during active labour; echocardiography showed no structural cardiac disease and her heart rate increased with atropine. We suggest further research so that guidelines could be established to prevent unnecessary morbidity and expense of temporary pacemaker insertion. Newly diagnosed cases of asymptomatic CHB in late pregnancy should be worked up for chronotropic responsiveness using atropine and responsive cases may be managed without pacemaker.

Keywords

• haemodynamic variations
• maternal complete heart block
• temporary pacing