Cardiac disease and pregnancy: hyper vigilance and extreme caution for optimal outcome

Cardiac disease in pregnancy is a leading cause of maternal death in more so high-income countries. The armamentarium for winning this difficult battle involves shared decision-making with communication across the clinical team and the patient. There is limited clinical evidence concerning effective approaches to managing such complex care and moreover involvement of different specialists makes coordinated care challenging. Bicuspid aortic valve (BAV) is the most common congenital cardiac malformation, occurring in 1-2% of the population whereas a single ventricle is a rare congenital heart disease that accounts for less than 1% of all congenital heart diseases. We had two cases of pregnancy with bicuspid aortic valve in one case and the other with single ventricle. The involvement of multidisciplinary team involving cardiologist, cardiothoracic anaesthetist and fetal maternal medicine specialist resulted in good maternal and fetal outcome in both the cases.

Post partum headache: a case series

Postpartum headache is the complaint of head, neck, or shoulder pain occurring during the first 6 weeks following delivery. Among the women who underwent neuraxial aneasthesia Post Dural puncture headache is one of the most common presentations. However, physicians should be aware that post Dural puncture headache is not the only cause of postpartum headache. Authors present a series of four cases that had varied presentation of post partum headache with varied diagnosis, the first case was of subdural haematoma where CT scan revealed an acute on chronic SDH. The second case was diagnosed as meningitis and the CSF for culture sensitivity grew Streptococcus Pneumoniae .In our third case of cortical vein  thrombosis , NCCT followed by MR venogram  revealed left transverse venous sinus thrombosis and our last case in the series was of posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome where MRI confirmed the findings of typical findings are symmetric edema involving the white matter of the posterior regions of the cerebral hemispheres. The diagnostic dilemma was resolved by neuroimaging because the clinical presentation was not making us reach a satisfactory diagnosis of the cause of headache. Early resort to neuroimaging and multidisciplinary team effort paved way to early diagnosis and appropriate recovery of the patients.