Pregnancy and delivery following cardiac operations

For young female patients with cardiac diseases, to be married, pregnancy and delivery are serious problems. Ninety-two post-operative patients (138 deliveries) and 57 non-surgical patients (86 deliveries) were subjected to analysis of their cardiac and obstetric conditions. A stable course and successful delivery were observed in the patients treated whose cardiac diseases were treated with surgical therapy. Among the non-surgical patients, however, impairment of their clinical condition was experienced including 3 maternal deaths. Incidence of various complications occurring during the course of pregnancy and delivery was 12.3% in the surgical and 18.6% in the non-surgical groups. It was clinically demonstrated that women suffering from cardiac diseases might well tolerate their pregnancy and delivery if accorded proper surgical treatment.