Physiological left ventricular hypertrophy and atrophy during normal pregnancy are driven by changes in hemodynamic load and peak wall stress.
Normal pregnancy is associated with a reversible fall in contractility. Systolic function is preserved throughout most of pregnancy by a fall in afterload but decreases near term and early postpartum because of decreased contractility and diminished preload. Left ventricular hypertrophy and atrophy are temporally related to changes in hemodynamic load. The response is consistent with a tightly coupled servomechanism transduced by peak wall stress with a 1- to 4-week compensatory response time.
Mone et al. (Thu,) studied this question.