Abstract
The traditional belief that pregnancy is absolutely contraindicated in maternal cardiovascular disease is outdated in our current era of evidence-based medicine. This chapter focuses on the precarious interaction between cardiac disease and pregnancy. Counseling the pregnant cardiac patient regarding her prognosis for successful pregnancy is further complicated by recent advances in medical and surgical therapy, fetal surveillance, and neonatal care. Secundum atrial septal defect (ASD) is the most common repaired and unrepaired congenital lesion that occurs in pregnant women. Ventricular septal defect (VSD) may occur as an isolated lesion or in conjunction with other congenital cardiac anomalies, including tetralogy of Fallot, transposition of the great vessels, and coarctation of the aorta. Peripartum cardiomyopathy (PPCMP) is defined as cardiomyopathy developing in the last month of pregnancy or the first 5 months postpartum in a woman without previous cardiac disease and after exclusion of other causes of cardiac failure. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.