Maternal arrhythmias of normal labor and delivery

Labor and delivery are associated with significant hemodynamic changes, as well as pain and anxiety, all of which could be fertile ground for arrhythm ias. In order to establish whether cardiac arrhythmias occur more frequentl y during labor and delivery in healthy parturients and whether it clinicall y affects the mother or the newborn, 100 pregnant women admitted for delive ry had Holter monitoring before, during, and up to 1 h postpartum. Our resu lts show that, excluding sinus rhythm variations, only a slight majority of the study subjects had arrhythmia at all, while only 2% had more complex a rrhythmias, none of which required any therapeutic intervention. We conclud e that cardiac arrhythmias occurring during labor, delivery, and postpartum in the healthy parturient are no more frequent than in the general female population of the same age and are without clinical consequences for the mo ther and the newborn. Copyright (C) 2001 S. Karger AG, Basel.