Postpartum Death with Maternal Congenital Heart Disease

Abstract

Four women, with congenital heart disease, who died following parturition are presented. All had advanced pulmonary arterial lesions before delivery. In the intrapartum or early postpartum period widespread fibrin and platelet thrombi occluded already narrowed pulmonary arterial channels increasing right-to-left cardiac shunts. The etiology of the preterminal thrombotic disorder has not been established in any of the cases.