The American Heart Association (AHA) adopted new recommendations in January for women with congenital heart defects who wanted to have children. A Washington Post article examines the case of one mother who may otherwise been unable to survive her pregnancy.
Candace Martinez has overcome plenty of obstacles, well before she thought about becoming a mother. She had open-heart surgery at 5 weeks old, heart failure at 18 years old and a pacemaker installed at 19.
But the 33-year-old new mother was able to give birth to a daughter in February, thanks in part to medical care received from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). According to the article,
“Where we used to think pregnancy was not feasible or a prohibitively high risk” for women with heart defects, said her UCLA cardiologist Jamil Aboulhosn, MD, one author of the new AHA guidelines, “many of these women can actually tolerate pregnancy, but they’re still high-risk pregnancies” that should occur in places able to meet the needs of such patients.
Read more about this case—and the larger discussion of pregnancy and congenital heart defects—here:
Nicholas joined TriMed in 2016 as the managing editor of the Chicago office. After receiving his master’s from Roosevelt University, he worked in various writing/editing roles for magazines ranging in topic from billiards to metallurgy. Currently on Chicago’s north side, Nicholas keeps busy by running, reading and talking to his two cats.