Beware postpartum shortness of breath

Abstract

Peripartum cardiomyopathy (PPCM) is one of the potentially life-threatening complications of pregnancy. We report a case of a 36-year-old female patient who presented with shortness of breath, swelling of feet after giving birth to triplets, and her tests revealed that left ventricle is dilated with its diameter on the borderline and she had EF 35% with advanced systolic dysfunction. Anterior wall and septum were severely hypokinetic. In the presence of these findings, the patient was evaluated as PPCM. PPCM must be considered in the differential diagnosis of a patient presenting with shortness of breath and swelling of feet, which are also common in pregnancy.

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.12669/pjms.315.8060

How to cite this:Akpinar G, Ipekci A, Gulen B, Ikizceli I. Beware postpartum shortness of breath. Pak J Med Sci 2015;31(5):1280-1282.   doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.12669/pjms.315.8060

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.