Anyone with congenital heart disease have a positive experience with vaginal labour?

[nifti7]

Hello! I have a repaired ASD and i really want to give birth naturally as opposed to a c section. Anyone here have any similar stories? (positive please)

OP I don’t have personal experience but lots of experience looking after women with heart disease, include repaired ASD. Have you met with a consultant and reviewed things? Essentially it comes down to whether there is any remaining concern with heart function (usually not, and in most cases can have a vaginal birth anyway). It would be important for you to have advice specific to your own situation. But yes quite a high chance that vaginal birth would be supported/recommended :) hope that helps and maybe someone else will be along soon to share personal experience

I have a much milder congenital heart condition than you - mitral valve prolapse with mild to moderate regurgitation and a bigemini heart beat. I don’t have any symptoms day to day.

My hospital has a joint cardiology obstetrics clinic and I was monitored by them through my three pregnancies. In practice that meant a few appointments with the clinic (joint Chelsea and Westminster and Royal Brompton teams) and a couple of echos and ECGs per pregnancy. In my case they had no objections to a vaginal birth and I had one of those followed by two sections. The sections were for non cardiac reasons (birth injuries and placental abruption in the vaginal birth). The only difference was that I did 6 weeks’ worth of Clexane injections after all births, including the vaginal one. And I was in hospital for two nights instead of one post section. But - I was never considered a risky case. In your place I would ask for a cardiology appointment, or better still, joint obstetrics and cardiology if that’s available where you are, and discuss your options with them.