My wife is pregnant and she has a heart problem.

[brooksbill]

My wife has a hole in her heart. She was told by the doctor that she won’t live long but she did. She even joined some sports during her college years and went on a few Latin America singles club to date around. Eventually, she got married to me. The doctor has been telling my wife to avoid getting pregnant but a few days ago, we found out that she is indeed, pregnant. She took 3 pregnancy tests and all appeared positive. We are extremely happy but a big part of us is worried. I’m worried for my wife and I’m worried for our baby. I don’t want my wife to suffer when she delivers the baby and most of all, I don’t want my baby to inherit the heart disease. I feel so lost and confused. My wife and I have yet to talk about this whole thing but I’m pretty sure we are keeping the baby. It would help us a lot if anyone went through this already. Please share your experience, advice, etc. Thanks ahead.

No personal experience but your wife needs an appointment with a cardiologist and obstetrician to find out the actual risks and implications. No point speculating until then. When the baby is born am almost certain it would be by caesarean.

Cardiac conditions need very careful monitoring during pregnancy. Your wife needs to get in contact with her consultant today to discuss her care going forward.

My daughter had a heart condition (but passed away at 1 month) so my knowledge in this area comes from that pov and some of the reading I did after we found out.

Pp advice about speaking to your wife's cardiologist asap seems sound. If that is not possible then your GP to get the ball rolling on appointments. She'll be automatically high risk and be under a consultant obstetrician as well as maybe a midwife. It is possible for women to have successful pregnancies with heart conditions but it does vary from case to case and she'll need careful monitoring. Only a cardiologist with in depth knowledge of your wife's situation can advise here.

Your wife's chd will put any children at a higher risk of a chd but it's not inevitable (depends on the reason for your wife's chd). You should get referred to fetal cardiology at the nearest specialist hospital (there are 11 in the UK at the moment). They will scan you at 20 weeks and potentially at 14-16weeks since there is a family history (I was scanned at 15wk in my current pregnancy, they can't tell everything at that stage but could say everything was ok so far). Your GP, midwife, obstetrician or maybe your wife's cardiologist should be able to refer you. If do find anything they can then advise on what treatment the baby might need. (Remember CHDs are a really wide spectrum of conditions and your child's might not present itself in the same way as your wife's).

Babycentre.co.uk have a heart baby and children board which has lots of knowledgeable posters on it.

See a cardiologist immediately. She will probably be put on baby aspirin (or something stronger) to prevent blood clots as that will be the main priority. You can also qualify for an early scan at 4 weeks and I think you will also get more doppler scans than most normal pregnancies - my cousin who also has a hole in her heart had one every few weeks to check blood flow

Honestly, if she has been told not to get pregnant because of her heart problem, and she is, she needs to see a cardiologist as a matter of urgency. Pregnancy can make heart problems much worse.