Assessment of Clinical and Echocardiographic findings of Pregnant Women with Dyspnea

Abstract

Background: It has frequently been observed that dyspnea when pregnant is caused by a rise in minute breathing. Many factors, including anemia, the weight of the developing uterus, an increase in pulmonary blood supply, as well as congestion in the nose, can cause dyspnea during pregnancy. Objective: Objective of the present study was to assess the prevalence and clinical and echocardiographic findings of pregnant women with dyspnea. Methodology:  The current analytical cross-sectional study was conducted at the gynecology and obstetrics department of a tertiary care hospital from January 2022 to June 2022 after the approval from ethical review board of the hospital. Informed consent was obtained from all the participants and then the dyspnea was assessed properly for all of them, through a properly adopted questionnaire before, moreover, echocardiography (ECHO) was done for those who had a breathing problem.  Results: A total of 280 pregnant females were included in the current study having a mean age of 29.24 ± 4.17 years with a standard deviation of. The over prevalence of dyspnea was 27.5% of which 3 (3.89%) of them were from the first trimester, 23 (29.87%) second trimester and 51 (66.23%) had 3rd trimester with a p-value of 0.001, showing a significant association between dyspnea and the trimesters. Cardiac conditions were more common at 49 (63.63%), followed by hypertension at 19 (24.67%). Conclusion: the current finds that sPAP, left ventricular end-systolic diameter (LVESd), along LVEDd were found to be out of the range considered normal in the current investigation. Additionally, most dyspneic women have cardiac conditions. Therefore, dyspneic women need to have a cardiovascular assessment by doing EECHO, to properly roll out the role of cardiac disease in the development of dyspnea.