Pulmonary Hypertension and Pregnancy: Management and Outcome

Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH) is a disorder defined by elevated mean pulmonary arterial pressure. PAH can be idiopathic or associated with a variety of medical conditions such as scleroderma, congenital heart disease, left heart failure, lung disease or chronic pulmonary thromboembolism. This progressive disease can cause severe right heart failure and death. Normal physiologic changes that occur during pregnancy may produce fatal consequences in PAH patients. Current guidelines recommend that pregnancy be avoided or terminated early in women with PAH. During the past decade, new advanced therapies for PAH have emerged leading to reports of successful pregnancies in patients with pulmonary hypertension. Substantial risk still exist, and current recommendations have not changed; nevertheless, in selected cases, if a patient insists on continuing with the pregnancy despite full awareness of the risks, an intensive treatment approach should be implemented in experiences medical centers to improve the outcome. This review article will focus on the pathophysiology of PAH in pregnancy and appropriate management during pregnancy, delivery and the post-partum period. *Corresponding author: Mordechai R Kramer MD, Pulmonary Institute, Rabin Medical Center, Beilinson Campus, Petah Tiqwa 49100, Israel, Tel: +972-39377221; Fax: +972-3-9242091; E-mail: [email protected] Received November 05, 2013; Accepted November 22, 2013; Published November 25, 2013 Citation: Rosengarten D, Kramer MR (2013) Pulmonary Hypertension and Pregnancy: Management and Outcome. J Pulmon Resp Med S4: 004. doi:10.4172/2161-105X.S4-004 Copyright: © 2013 Rosengarten D, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.