Pregnancy and stroke

[Emm333]

Hi everyone my mum had a stroke caused by atrial fibrillation at 62. I'm currently 6 weeks pregnant and I read online there's a small link between pregnancy and stroke - I'm wondering if I'm at higher risk in addition to this as my mum had one?

I will ask my doctor the same question but wondering if anyone has been in a similar situation with family history of stroke and gone on to have safe healthy pregnancies? Were you given additional monitoring if you have been in this situation?.

Have you got af too?

@Princesspollyyy Not that I'm aware of - I haven't had any symptoms but never been tested. I was on the pill up until a year ago so was having regular blood pressure checks then which were always normal. I'm 30 if that's useful info!

No increase in risk as long as they think her stroke was due to AF and she doesn’t have any other heart problems. Congratulations on the pregnancy :)

Do you have AF too? If you do then, maybe pregnancy might increase the risk of you having a stroke, if you don't then it won't. I hope you mum is ok?

My mother had a stroke in her 20s (two years before having me) caused by estrogen in the combined pill. My understanding (although I'm not a doctor, my MIL is!) that it's the increased estrogen level in pregnancy increases stroke risk in pregnancy.

I checked in with my midwives about this and they said that since I only had one risk factor (immediate family history), I wasn't considered high risk in my pregnancy (I was told you need two risk factors to be considered high risk) and I went on to have a safe, healthy pregnancy. If there was an increased risk for me, they would have put me on aspirin to manage it. So please do mention to your GP/midwives - even if there is a risk, it's something that can be managed for a safe, healthy pregnancy 🙂

I have a history of blood clots. My dad had a mini stroke in his 50s, my mum had a post partum stroke and my sister had heart attack in her 40s and the type of heart attack that she had is also common post partum.
I brought it up with the consultant and they decided that there was nothing they needed to do in pregnancy but they would respond proactively to even small risks of blood clots.
At about 35 weeks one of my blood tests showed a marker for blood clots so I was put on heparin just in case whilst they ran some tests. After 4 days they determined I didn't have a blood clot so they stopped the heparin.