Adolescents with congenital heart disease reaching childbearing years

Data indicate that increasing numbers of infants and children with congenital heart disease are reaching adulthood. A major concern for the young woman with congenital heart disease is pregnancy and childbirth. Heart disease remains the major nonobstetrical cause of maternal death. Changes in maternal physiology, particularly an increase in cardiac output and a decrease in peripheral vascular resistance, result in a major hemodynamic burden for pregnant patients with organic cardiac lesions. An understanding of these changes is essential to properly evaluate physical findings in pregnant patients and to manage patients with organic heart disease who become pregnant. Also discussed are the major groups or types of congenital heart disease, psychological aspects, and genetic risk factors. These are further amplified by a case study in a 17‐year‐old female with ideopathic hypertropic subaortic stenosis.