Pregnancy outcome in women with an uncorrected single ventricle: A single-centre experience from South India.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Women with an uncorrected single ventricle heart are at increased risk of adverse maternal and perinatal outcomes. METHODS: We report our experience of managing pregnant women with uncorrected single ventricles, during the time period 2011 to 2017, in a low-resource setting and compare pregnancy outcome with healthy concurrent controls. Outcomes assessed include the mode of delivery, maternal complications, neonatal death and birth weight. RESULTS: There were six pregnant women with uncorrected single ventricles who had a total of 14 pregnancies. There was one maternal death in a woman with atrioventricular-septal defect and Eisenmenger syndrome. Caesarean section rates and preterm delivery were similar, whereas perinatal loss and low-birth weight rates were higher among women with a single ventricle compared to healthy controls. CONCLUSION: Unplanned pregnancies without prenatal counselling/care pose a challenge to physicians especially in low to middle income countries and with the high risk of morbidity/mortality, pregnancy should be discouraged.