Jeanee Rose Andrewartha

On March, 2012, seven days after the birth of our twins, my beautiful wife K suffered severe congestive heart failure. Pregnancy-induced congestive heart failure is a fairly rare condition.  While estimates vary, it seems to affect about 1 in 10,000 pregnant women--and is fatal for up to 30%.  As reported in USA Today, “the disease [often] goes undiagnosed until it's too late, because heart failure symptoms mimic those of a normal pregnancy.

I went down to see family with my two boys who were 8 and 9 at the time. We spent a week visiting family and had a great visit. On the last night there I stayed the night with my grandmother. I stated having a very hard time breathing and would sit up and gasp for air. I thought I was allergic to something in her home. I went back to my parents the next

The California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative and Stanford University is conducting a study on women's experiences with severe physical complications in pregnancy. Recruitment is limited to those women who live in the United States. The injuries may have been diagnosed at the time of delivery or may not have been noticed until weeks, months or years after the delivery. They are conducting private interviews with women who gave birth vaginally and with women

We all know that pregnancy uses up a woman's stores of minerals. The old saying, "a tooth for every baby" says how much a growing fetus can take from a mother. Iron stores, calcium, vitamin D, zinc, etc can all be depleted during pregnancy and whether this loss of minerals, has a role to play in the development of peripartum cardiomyopathy is something that needs to be investigated. There are many

Most women who develop PPCM are told that they are not able to have any more babies. This is because the initial study on post PPCM pregnancies was done on 16 Haitian women, and the study did not distinguish between women who had normal heart function and those who didn't and of the 16, 8 experienced a worsening of heart function, one died and only one went on to make a full recovery.

Mayo Clinic cardiologists Bernard Gersh, M.B., Ch.B., D.Phil., and Lori Blauwet, M.D., discuss peripartum cardiomyopathy and Dr. Blauwet's research into its prevalence among African women.  This is an informative video that discusses current research into Peripartum Cardiomyopathy in Africa and how the research in Africa relates to the experience in the US. Key points: Peripartum Cardiomyopathy has a number of risk factors but none of these risk factors have

Latest study on postpartum cardiomyopathy in North Carolina, estimates the incidence to be 1 case for every 2,772 live births with a 7-year case-fatality rate was 16.5% . This equates to 14 deaths based on one birth year, in North Carolina alone and these are conservative estimates because potential cases were identified from discharge ICD-9-CM codes and leaves out women who were diagnosed weeks after giving birth. Calculating the incidence of PPCM for the

Between 1998 and 2009, the rate of serious complications like heart attack, stroke, severe bleeding and kidney failure during or after childbirth roughly doubled among U.S. women, according to researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Heart problems were the most common cause of death. And in this latest study, Callaghan's team found that one childbirth complication - the need for cardiac surgery during or after delivery - showed

One of the first books that I read after being discharged from the hospital with post partum cardiomyopathy was The Healthy Heart Program. It was an excellent read and in the crucial first weeks provided a practical plan to recover and an understanding of the action of inflammation in the body as the cause of heart disease. While not specifically targetted towards post partum cardiomyopathy, the information in this book and No More Heart Disease

In August of 2007 i got pregnant with my 3rd child. In my previous pregnancy i had pre-eclampsia she was born a mo nth early by and emergency c-section. My first 4 months with my 3rd pregnancy were fairly normal. In december i got sick thought at first it was a cold. After about a week i was terrible sick couldnt lie down to sleep my legs were swollen. I felt terrible anxious it was

This is a long story. Every time I think of telling it I always shy away, justifying it by telling myself that I couldn't tell it without it being too fragmented and possibly making it sound too clinical because I can't begin to touch the emotion behind it. Here goes... I got pregnant at the age of 18, not the best circumstance but her father and I got married and were

I've just been diagnosed with this very scary disease July 17, 2012. To start, I have 3 kids, 2 teenagers from a previous relationship, I got married 3 years ago to a nice man that didn't have any kids so I wanted to give him a child, my pregnancy was very challenging, I was very tired, when I did try to do things like go shopping, I could barely walk through

One of the most touching stories about how the gift of a heart that united two families. Taylor Storch, a thirteen year old girl who died in a skiing accident, donated her heart to Patricia Navarino-Winters, a women whose heart was broken because of PPCM. In the video below, NBC interviews Taylor's mother and father, Todd and Tara Storch and Patricia Winters and tell the story of how they found each other and

1st pregnancy was at 30 2/7 weeks. We flew, they were treating the breathing (they called it asthma)with a inhaler, and they said maybe pre-eclampsia. They had me go into the hospital for observation. BP was 180/110 and harder time breathing, with the spins. I stayed in the bed for almost 24 hours. The bp was almost normal and I felt a little better. They released me in the morning. I went

Starting from my pregnancy it was fairly easy. During the last 3 months I was diagnosed with gallstones! That was major hell. It hurt like crazy! That is th eonly thing I've EVER had wrong with me and my body.... Fast forward to my sons birth...... HE came out very fast. I only had hard labor for 45 minutes and received my epidural and 5 hours later I was pushing! He came out