Anesthesia for Cardiac Patients During Labor and Delivery

Anesthesiologists are a critical part of the delivery team taking care of pregnant cardiac patients. Providing adequate labor analgesia or safe anesthesia for cesarean section is important to providing optimal patient care and minimizing complications. This chapter reviews relevant cardiac physiologic changes during pregnancy that we must account for, options for labor analgesia, and surgical anesthesia with a discussion of their effects on the cardiovascular system. The chapter also includes brief review of selected cardiac lesions and their anesthetic considerations.