- A 30-year-old pregnant woman with no family history of heart disease was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy.
- The woman was treated to get her heart back to normal.
- Experts say women need to insist on seeing a specialist if they think something is wrong.
- Visit the Insider home page for more stories.
As the mother of one with another baby on the way, Jessica Diede of Phoenix, Arizona, 30, exercised regularly and followed a healthy diet. But at 20 weeks pregnant, she found herself on a covered playground with a worryingly fast heart rate. When Diede lay on her side, her heart rate returned to normal.
“That was one of my red flags. I was like, ‘Okay, if I just lay down like this and everything is normal, that’s not right,'” Diede, a volunteer at the American Heart Association’s Go Red For Women “Real Women” campaign, said Insider.
This incident was the beginning of Diede’s long journey to find a correct diagnosis. She now advocates that other women see a specialist if they feel that something is wrong with their health.
After the shock, Diede tracked each time her heart rate went up and took that record to her next obstetrics appointment. Diede’s doctor thought that anxiety was causing his heart problems. Diede knew that was not the problem and insisted on consulting a cardiologist.
“If I hadn’t asked him to give me that reference, he never would have,” she said.
She was shocked by the cardiologist’s diagnosis: “‘You really do have cardiomyopathy and your heart is failing’ and I said what, I didn’t expect that,” said Diede.
Cardiomyopathy is a disease in which the heart cannot pump blood effectively.
At that point, Diede’s heartbeat episodes increased to about three to four times a day, lasting at least five minutes each time.
Diede needed two procedures after giving birth to restore her normal heart rate
As Diede’s pregnancy progressed, her oxygen levels dropped and her medication for cardiomyopathy stopped working. “The bigger I got, the worse it got in my heart,” she said.
Because of these problems, Diede had to go into labor at 34 weeks. She had a forceps delivery, in which doctors have to use a tongs-like tool to pull the baby out.
Diede’s cardiac episodes did not stop after the birth of her son. After meeting with different cardiologists, one of them finally diagnosed her with another heart problem: AV nodal reentry tachycardia (AVNRT), which is a type of fast heart rate. She did two procedures to restore her normal heart rate.
Since then, Diede’s cardiac episodes have subsided. She now needs to take a beta-blocker to keep her heart health in check for the rest of her life.
Diede advocates that women struggle to see an expert if they feel something is wrong
This experience inspired Diede to educate women, both before pregnancy and during pregnancy, “to listen to your body and then take care of your own health,” she said. “I want women to just push for referrals and fight for their health if something doesn’t feel right.”
Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, a volunteer medical specialist at the American Heart Association Go Red for Women, said that pregnant women should defend themselves if they suspect health problems. “The worst scenario is that you are wrong, but it is the best scenario,” she said.
Steinbaum said pregnant women should talk to their doctor if they have shortness of breath, chest pain or swelling in their ankles.