How does the diagnosis of congenital heart disease affect the pregnancy?
For most women the pregnancy will continue normally. You will have your regular visits with your obstetrician to have your blood pressure and urine checked and your weight monitored. More ultrasounds may be done to check on the baby’s growth and to monitor the heart’s function. If the baby is positioned in a way that makes it difficult to see all areas of the heart, you may be asked to have more than one echocardiogram to confirm the diagnosis or just to get a better look at another area of the heart that was not viewed well on the initial exam. Congenital heart disease may or may not be associated with other anomalies or with genetic syndromes or chromosomal abnormalities. The need for an amniocentesis to evaluate the baby’s chromosomes will be determined by the perinatologist after the targeted ultrasound. Labor and delivery are not affected by the diagnosis of congenital heart disease. Most babies will tolerate labor and delivery without any problems. There is no need to do a Caesar
