What You Should Know About Arrhythmia During Pregnancy
Under the best of circumstances, pregnancy is a time filled with excitement and considerable apprehension as you do your best to ensure a successful outcome for you and your unborn child. As your body undergoes incredible physiological changes, certain conditions can crop up, which just adds to your already increasing anxiety. Heart arrhythmias are a prime example of one of these unwelcome developments, but theyre not necessarily cause for panic.
At Heart Rhythm Associates, Dr. Van H. De Bruyn and our team help patients in all stages of their lives better navigate their heart health. And for women who are building their families, we take extra care to ensure that the journey is a safe one.
Heres what you should know about arrhythmia during pregnancy.
Video: How To Confirm Pregnancy Without Taking A Test
While pregnancy tests are the sought after option, there are a few ways by which you can know with reasonable certainty that you are pregnant. In this article, we will look at how to confirm your pregnancy without a test, for the benefit of expecting parents.
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What Are The Treatments For Preeclampsia
Delivering the baby can often cure preeclampsia. When making a decision about treatment, your provider take into account several factors. They include how severe it is, how many weeks pregnant you are, and what the potential risks to you and your baby are:
- If you are more than 37 weeks pregnant, your provider will likely want to deliver the baby.
- If you are less than 37 weeks pregnant, your health care provider will closely monitor you and your baby. This includes blood and urine tests for you. Monitoring for the baby often involves ultrasound, heart rate monitoring, and checking on the baby’s growth. You may need to take medicines, to control your blood pressure and to prevent seizures. Some women also get steroid injections, to help the baby’s lungs mature faster. If the preeclampsia is severe, you provider may want you to deliver the baby early.
The symptoms usually go away within 6 weeks of delivery. In rare cases, symptoms may not go away, or they may not start until after delivery . This can be very serious, and it needs to be treated right away.
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What You Can Do
If you are pregnant or planning on becoming pregnant, you can take these steps to help manage your heart health:
- Understand your risk. Know your body mass index , blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar levels. The Heart Truth® has information and tools to help you take action toward better heart health.
- Talk to your doctor about your risk and how it affects this pregnancy and your risk in future pregnancies. Tell your doctor about any medicines you are taking and keep all your medical appointments during and after pregnancy.
- If youre not yet pregnant, develop heart-healthy habits now to set yourself up for a healthy pregnancy. This includes choosing healthy foods, getting regular physical activity, aiming for a healthy weight, managing stress, getting enough good quality sleep, and quitting smoking if you smoke.
- Watch for warning signs of a problem during and after pregnancy. Some warning signs of a heart problem during or after pregnancy are a worsening headache, overwhelming tiredness, dizziness, trouble breathing, chest or belly pain, swelling, or nausea. If you feel like something is wrong, call your doctor or seek medical care right away. Learn about other warning signs from the CDC.
When To See A Doctor
Feeling out of breath and having a higher heart rate is normal in most pregnancies, Dr. Nguyen says, but it’s important to get checked if it seems like your pulse is increasing rapidly or if it goes over 100 while at rest.
If you can feel your heart beating fast, have significant shortness of breath or any chest pain especially after resting and drinking water Dr. Nguyen suggests letting your doctor know right away. Some pregnancy-related conditions, such as blood clots and anemia, could be present, she says.
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Listening To Your Baby’s Heartbeat
A major part of midwifery care during labour is listening to and recording your babys heartbeat to help identify if there are any problems.
Most babies come through labour without any problems, but there are a few babies who run into difficulties. The best way of finding out which babies are having trouble is to listen to every babys heartbeat regularly throughout labour.
What Else Could The Pulsing In Your Stomach Be
While the pulsing sensation might be a result of your own artery pumping blood, thatâs not the only reason youâre feeling what seems to be a heartbeat. âYes, the pulsing could be the uterine arteries or arteries around the umbilicus that flutter or pulsate,â OB/GYN Dr. Kim Langdon, MD, tells Romper. âBut it could also be gas or fetal movement that triggers such sensations.â If thatâs the case, you might find that the feeling stops after you move, or go to the bathroom.
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Calculate Your Pulse Rate
According to the American Heart Association , you can calculate your resting heart rate by placing your finger on your wrist, the inside of your elbow, the side of your neck or the top of your foot. Your pulse should have a strong, steady beat.
Measure your resting heart rate first thing in the morning, ideally before you’ve gotten out of bed. Use a stopwatch or a clock with a second hand to keep track of the time. Count the number of beats during a 60-second period.
Changes In Food Patterns
This can go both ways you might feel cravings towards a particular type of food and aversions towards others. This occurs due to rise in the levels of estrogen in the blood and can happen any time throughout the pregnancy. Food cravings can be satisfied, provided that the items are safe and that you do not overeat.
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When Should You Be Concerned About Feeling A Pulse In Your Belly
Feeling a pulse in your lower abdomen when youâre pregnant might be a little weird, but it shouldnât be something to worry about. âMost of the time itâs normal, but it depends on whatâs causing it,â says Dr. Langdon. âIf itâs associated with any other symptoms, like shortness of breath or chest pain, you should seek medical attention immediately.â
If you feel a heartbeat in your stomach, itâs most likely your abdominal aorta doing its job during your pregnancy. And just know that even though that pulsing sensation doesnât mean you can actually feel your babyâs heartbeat, itâs beating strong inside of you.
Studies cited:
Hytten, F. âBlood volume changes in normal pregnancy.â 1985
Experts:
Dr. Susan Klugman, MD, director of reproductive and medical genetics at Montefiore Health System
Dr. Kim Langdon, MD, an OB/GYN
Symptoms Causes Treatments Complications And Tips
Your body goes through many changes during pregnancy. Pregnancy hormones and a growing uterus cause a variety of well-known pregnancy symptoms such as morning sickness, fatigue, and frequent urination.
However, pregnancy also affects other areas of your body like your circulatory system . Some women don’t notice the changes, but others experience new symptoms, including the emergence of heart palpitations.
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Increased Heart Rate During Early Pregnancy
Around weeks 8 to 10, your heart may begin pumping faster and harder. Palpitations and arrhythmias are common in pregnancy. This is normally due to hormones.
Increased blood flow due to the fetus happens later in pregnancy. Ideally, management starts before conception, but if you have an underlying heart problem, your doctor can help supervise low dosages of drugs.
Heart Rate And Blood Pressure Changes During Pregnancy Are Less Dramatic Than Previously Thought
New analysis from over 36,000 healthy women in 20 countries suggests that physiological changes during pregnancy may not be as dramatic as traditionally taught. However, average blood pressures do appear to be increasing year on year.
Medical text books are based on data that is now over forty years old. New research from researchers at The University of Oxford, and published in BMC Medicine, includes much more recent data. The new findings show that changes to womens blood pressure and heart rate during pregnancy are not as striking as previously thought.
Traditionally, medical text books have taught students that blood pressure drops by 10-15mmHg during the middle of pregnancy. These text books are based on old data and quite small numbers of pregnant women. This newer and much larger analysis shows that the lower diastolic blood pressures seen mid-pregnancy are on average just 1-2 mmHg lower than the earliest measurements that were taken in about week 10. This is much less of a drop than suggested in the text books. The analysis also shows that, on average, systolic blood pressure rises very slightly through pregnancy.
Blood pressure in pregnant women has increased slightly each year since 1967. The steady increase in blood pressure over time since 1967 may be a result of pregnant women being older and heavier. Blood pressures are similar for those women pregnant with their first baby as for those who already have children.
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How To Check Your Unborn Babys Heart Rate At Home
A positive pregnancy test will probably tell you that you are pregnant, but the first time you hear the galloping heartbeats of your baby during your ultrasound is when the reality of new life forming in your belly actually sinks in. A babys heart typically begins to beat around 5th-6th week of the pregnancy. This is about 2 weeks after you have missed your period or 6 weeks from your last period. An early ultrasound can detect this fetal heartbeat around 7thor 8thweek.
What is a normal fetal heart rate?
The average fetal heart rate from week 10 until full term is between 120 and 160 beats per minute. This is about twice the rate of a normal adults resting heart rate! Your babys normal fetal heart rate will also vary naturally, just as your heart rate does. Your babys movement, sleeping and other activities can cause the heart rate to go up or down.
Why is it important to check Fetal Heart Rate during prenatal checkups?
The fetal heart rate is the first checkpoint for the Doctor at each prenatal appointment to assess fetal well being and identify any changes that might be associated with problems during pregnancy. FHR is generally checked at prenatal appointments for all pregnancies, however, its monitoring is especially helpful for high-risk pregnancy conditions such as the ones where the mother has high blood sugar, high blood pressure, late maternal age or there are problems with fetal growth.
What can cause FHR to change?
Myths about Fetal Heart Rate
When Do You Know If You Have A Pregnancy Symptom
If youre in your childbearing years and a week or more has passed without the start of an expected menstrual cycle, you might be pregnant. However, this symptom can be misleading if you have an irregular menstrual cycle. Tender, swollen breasts. Early in pregnancy hormonal changes might make your breasts sensitive and sore.
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Does Your Heart Beat Faster In Early Pregnancy
The heart rate may also increase by 10-20 beats per minute. The changes peak during weeks 20-24 and usually resolve completely within 6 weeks of childbirth. The blood pressure in the upper extremities should change very little during pregnancy, but pressure in the lower extremities increases.
When Do The Symptoms Start
Though it may sound odd, your first week of pregnancy is based on the date of your last menstrual period. Your last menstrual period is considered week 1 of pregnancy, even if you werent actually pregnant yet.
The expected delivery date is calculated using the first day of your last period. For that reason, the first few weeks where you may not have symptoms also count toward your 40-week pregnancy.
| Signs and symptoms |
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Why Heart Rate Changes
During pregnancy, your resting heart rate will rise slightly as the months pass, because the heart is pumping more blood throughout the body than usual, according to G. Thomas Ruiz, MD, an obstetrician/gynecologist at MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, California.
“As soon as a woman gets pregnant, hormones are flooding the body, and that causes the peripheral vascular system to relax, with corresponding compensation in plasma volume,” Dr. Ruiz says.
Basically, you have more “space” in your veins and arteries because hormones are prompting a relaxation response, he says, so your body tries to fill that space, and it requires more blood to be pumped out at a faster pace. But what you’ll likely feel as that happens isn’t a racing pulse, Dr. Ruiz says, but a sense of fatigue.
“This is one of the reasons many women feel so tired, particularly in their first trimester as you’re trying to adjust to this change,” he says. “The pulse rate may be slight, but there’s a great deal going on, and it’s helpful to rest more often as your body adjusts to these shifts in function.”
Although the pulse rate increases because of pregnancy, it’s a very poor pregnancy test because the increase is slight. Also, the AHA says, your resting heart rate can change due to other factors, such as air temperature, body position, medication usage and even strong emotions.
Morning Sickness Nausea And Vomiting During Early Pregnancy
Nausea and morning sickness usually develops around weeks 4 to 6. Although its called morning sickness, it can occur any time during the day or night. Its unclear exactly what causes nausea and morning sickness, but hormones may play a role.
During the first trimester of pregnancy, many women experience mild to severe morning sickness. It may become more intense toward the end of the first trimester, but often becomes less severe as you enter the second trimester.
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Pregnancy: A Stress Test For Your Heart
Everything changes when youre having a baby. This includes your body. In fact, the changes to your body are so big that medical experts see pregnancy as a stress test.
There are changes in your heart and your blood circulation, says Dr. Nandita Gupta, OHSU Health cardiologist and womens heart health expert. There is a lot of stress on your body during pregnancy.
An uneventful pregnancy and birth are signs that your body can pass that stress test. But if you experience problems like gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, and premature birth, these are warning signs from your body.
If you have an adverse pregnancy outcome, you are more at risk for heart disease or a cardiac event ten or twenty years down the road, says Dr. Gupta.
These problems arent rare.
- 5% of pregnant women have preeclampsia.
- Up to 10% of pregnant women have gestational diabetes.
- More than 10% of infants in the US are born too early.
Depending on how severe your condition was in pregnancy, your risk of heart disease may have doubled, tripled or even quadrupled. Many of the women who have heart attacks in their forties and fifties had a warning sign years ago when they had preeclampsia or gestational diabetes during pregnancy.
Unfortunately, the connection between problems in pregnancy and heart disease risk is still not well known.
Dr. Gupta is now seeing patients right at the OHSU Center for Womens Health. Call and ask for an appointment with Dr. Gupta in the womens heart program.
Risk Factors For Pregnancy
Each year, about 700 women in the U.S. die from pregnancy-related problems, and more than 50,000 women have life-threatening pregnancy complications. Heart and blood vessel conditions, such as coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, and cardiomyopathy, are leading causes. The good news is that most of these problems are preventable, meaning you can take steps before, during, and after pregnancy to help your heart health.
Pregnancy-related heart problems can happen to any woman, but your risk may be higher if you:
- Are 40 or older
- Smoke
- Have existing heart disease, such as congenital heart disease or heart valve disease
- Have an existing health condition, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, blood clotting disorders, sleep apnea, anemia, or polycystic ovary syndrome
In the United States, high blood pressure happens in 1 in every 12 to 17 pregnancies in women ages 20 to 44. Read more about high blood pressure in pregnancy.
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Heart Palpitations While Pregnant
Studies show that heart palpitations are common in pregnancy. Some women will experience heart palpitations for the first time during pregnancy. Others get them before they become pregnant, and continue to feel them throughout pregnancy.
Heart palpitations during pregnancy are usually harmless, but they can sometimes be a sign of a problem. Heres what you need to know about the symptoms, causes, treatment, and complications of heart palpitations during pregnancy.
What Kind Of Cramps Indicate Pregnancy
Implantation cramping or bleeding may be an early sign of pregnancy. It is easy to mistake period cramping or a light period for symptoms of implantation. Because of the similarity of symptoms between menstruation and implantation, it helps to know the other early signs of pregnancy.
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