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Listen to Your Heart While Expecting
Have a Heart-healthy Pregnancy
By Lisa A. Goldstein
Health conscious most of her adult life, Deborah Springer of Kernersville, N.C., is even more so due to her job as a cardiology nurse at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. "I have had a patient over the past year – 36 [years old] with three children – who developed pregnancy-induced cardiomyopathy," she says. "It is tragic."
As a result, Springer, who is pregnant with her fifth child, is the perfect example of someone who not only pays attention to her heart during pregnancy, but lives that lifestyle all the time. She eats a healthy diet and keeps up with most of her pre-pregnancy exercise routine.
All this is important because the No. 1 killer of women is heart disease. "Women need to take care of their hearts starting at an early age, and pregnancy should not interfere with a heart-healthy lifestyle," says Dr. Matthew S. DeVane, author of Heart Smart: A Cardiologist's 5 Step Plan for Detecting, Preventing and Even Reversing Heart Disease (Wiley and Sons, 2006). "Women with risk factors for heart disease (hypertension, diabetes, smoking, high cholesterol, family history of heart disease, overweight, sedentary lifestyles) should be especially diligent with being good to [their hearts] during and after pregnancy. The risks don't go away with pregnancy and should not be ignored. In fact, women with risk factors should be extra careful to stay heart healthy during pregnancy because of the common habits of eating poorly, gaining [more than the recommended amount of] weight and lack of exercise that comes with pregnancy. Smoking and alcohol, of course, are absolute no-no's for the heart and the baby at all points in and around pregnancy."
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