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Successful pregnancies for ventilator users

John R Bach1

  • 1Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, New Jersey Medical School, Newark 07103, USA.

American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation
|February 22, 2003
PubMed

This case series describes full-term pregnancies despite no autonomous ability to breathe due to poliomyelitis or ventilatory insufficiency due to severe kyphoscoliosis. Three women with postpoliomyelitis who were continuously dependent on noninvasive intermittent positive pressure ventilation and one woman who developed ventilatory insufficiency due to severe kyphoscoliosis became pregnant and delivered healthy, full-term babies. They had vital capacities of 240, 250, 280 (5% of normal), and 880 ml (14% of normal), respectively, when becoming pregnant. The up to continuous use of noninvasive intermittent positive pressure ventilation can permit the natural completion of pregnancies of women with little or no ability to breathe unaided.

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