Pericardial Effusion

[Anthony01]

I had a horrible pregnancy with my son, sever oedema, which was actually cause by a build up of fluid around my heart. This resulted in the fluid being drained at 35+3 and my son being delivered by emergency cs at 35+4. I recovered as soon as I had the drain and no fluid has returned to my heart. I would love another baby, but wondered if anyone else has had the same experience and gone on to have another pregnancy. If so, how did it go?

We're just bumping this thread to get it back into Active Conversations in case anyone's around with some advice and support.

Hi - I haven’t had this experience personally but am aware of some similar stories - it depends a little bit on exactly what happened for you. Did you have severe preeclampsia? Cardiomyopathy? It may be something that can happen again or it may be a one-off. The best way to get advice for this would be to make an appointment with your GP (phone would work) to talk things through, and tell them you’d like to be referred for a preconception consultation with one of the specialists. If you have obstetric physicians in your area that would be perfect, otherwise MFM or specialist obstetrician. They’ll talk you through it, including level of risk and things that could be done to prevent the same thing, or they may advise you against another pregnancy. Good luck x

Thank you. I’m waiting for an appointment with the Cardiac consultant, but with the current situation they are only taking urgent appointments. I was (to my knowledge) for and healthy and classed as a low risk pregnancy. I didn’t suffer with preeclampsia or cardiomyopathy. The swelling was caused by the pericardial effusion. I know everyone presents differently in each pregnancy, but would be interesting to see if anyone else experience something similar.

Replying mostly to bump again as i don’t think I have too much more to add I’m sorry! I guess the main question is what actually caused the pericardial effusion and whether that’s something that can happen again - the effusion itself is usually a symptom of an underlying cause (eg infection, abnormal blood vessels, other things I don’t know about!) I’m hoping it was a random one-off and you’ll be given the all clear - and sorry your appointment is delayed! Would still think a chat with your GP is a good idea if you haven’t done it already, good luck!

Hey OP- how did you get on??