Surgical Approach to Coarctation of the Aorta Complicating Pregnancy

Coarctation of the aorta has been the subject of a tremendous amount of research and writing since the first thorough description of the condition by a Paris anatomist, in 1789. There have appeared in various world publications approximately 53 single articles during the first six months of 1950. From the point of view of the obstetrician, however, one finds less than 50 reported cases of this condition associated with pregnancy, and these articles all represent viewpoints of conservative pessimism.1Therapeutic abortion with sterilization and cesarean section with tubal ligation are the two components of good treatment most often recommended,2and in none of these articles does one find any reference to the surgical advance in the treatment that has been worked out during the last decade. The lesion is not a medical rarity; the incidence as stated by Blackford is about 1 in 1,500, with a predominance of