Any obstetricians, maternal medicine specialists or midwives about?

[TheSheepofWallSt]

Posting for traffic

My DSis is 30wks pregnant with her first child. Don’t want to give away any outing details, so won’t mention age etc. Apologies if that would be useful.

She’s been monitored because her heart rate has been unusually high for a few weeks with no obvious cause.

Today she was admitted to hospital with palpitations, a HR of 190 and breathlessness. Her HR hasn’t come down at all, and chest X-rays and bloods have shown nothing except elevated white cells (which she’s had throughout pregnancy) and a previous blood test a few weeks ago showed high carbon dioxide. Never found a cause of that either.

Baby has been fine throughout- until today the baby has shown increased HR too.

Theyve given DSis blood thinners, so presume they’re worried about a clot, and want to do a contrast CT... they just won’t say what they think the problem is.

Am worried sick and live miles away with my own baby- any ideas what this could be? It sounds serious, but not sure ..?

Help so greatly appreciated.

I can't offer medical advice but didn't want to read and run.

If the doctors haven't yet given your sister a diagnosis it's probably because they need to do a few more tests to rule out some of the possibilities and come to the right conclusion so they can offer the right treatment.

It's hard to have to wait, but it sounds like the doctors are taking it seriously and investigating properly, which I hope is at least a little reassuring.

Thanks @kittens

I have a smattering of medical knowledge from a former life, which is making me jump to all sorts of (probably wrong) conclusions- and always the worst case scenario.

Thank you for taking the time

Well...surely they have to treat for a blood clot in the lungs (pulmonary embolus) until they're certain that it isn't. So I wouldn't presume that they're convinced it's that. They'll presumably also be screening for infection. I would not be surprised if she also had an echocardiogram (heart scan).

They may well also be giving steroids, not to treat mum (though there are possible causes in mum that it might help!), but just in case they find something that means it would be safer for both of them to deliver the baby. Steroids help mature up the baby's lungs. If it does come to that...obviously the baby would be premature, and would need NICU/SCBU, might need some breathing support...but the long term outcomes by 30 weeks are actually generally very good these days. But if she is having steroids don't panic and assume that means that they will be getting baby it: they do it if they think it's a possibility, and then if everything settles down again, hey, it was better to play safe.

Can't really do more detail that that as 1)too little info, and 2)my job is to stabilise the baby, not the mum!