Properly administered anesthesia and analgesia, tailored to the specific cardiac lesion and guided by appropriate monitoring, can contribute to the reduction of maternal and neonatal mortality.
Does properly administered anesthesia and analgesia reduce maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity in pregnant women with heart disease?
Properly administered anesthesia and analgesia are crucial for reducing maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity in pregnant women with heart disease.
Management of pregnant women with heart disease remains challenging due to the advancement of innovations in cardiac surgery and correction of complex cardiac anomalies, and more recently, with the successful performance of heart transplants, cardiac diseases are not only likely to coexist with pregnancy, but will also increase in frequency over the years to come. In developing countries with a higher prevalence of rheumatic fever, cardiac disease may complicate as many as 5.9% of pregnancies with a high incidence of maternal death. Since many of these deaths occur during or immediately following parturition, heart disease is of special importance to the anesthesiologist. This importance arises from the fact that drugs used for preventing or relieving pain during labor and delivery exert a major influence - for better or for worse - on the prognosis of the mother and newborn. Properly administered anesthesia and analgesia can contribute to the reduction of maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity.
Luthra et al. (Fri,) conducted a review in Heart disease in pregnancy. Anesthetic management was evaluated. Properly administered anesthesia and analgesia, tailored to the specific cardiac lesion and guided by appropriate monitoring, can contribute to the reduction of maternal and neonatal mortality.