Researchers believe that a large number of women who delay having children potentially increase the chances of having a heart attack. This condition is not considered common but it puts them at risk of heart attack three to four fold.
Lead researcher Dr. Uri Elkayam, a professor of medicine at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, reviewed 103 women with pregnancy-related AMI in the last 10 years.
The results were compared to 125 cases, aged between 19 to 44 years, who had been previously diagnosed and researchers found that the causes of the heart attacks were plaque buildup in a coronary artery in 41 cases and a blood clot in eight. In 28 women the cause was tearing of a coronary artery.
The heart attacks occurred at all stages of pregnancy and during the three-month period after delivery, and were more frequent in women who had multiple pregnancies and those older than 30 years, the investigators report in the July 15 Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
However, there is a decline in maternal deaths related to AMI during and immediately following pregnancy. The new data suggest that only 5 to 10 percent of expectant and new mothers who have a heart attack die as a result, researchers said, mainly due to increased awareness and more aggressive clinical approaches to treating AMI in general.
According to Health Day news, 45 percent of these women smoked, 24 percent had high cholesterol, 22 percent had a family history of heart attack, 15 percent had high blood pressure, and 11 percent had diabetes. However none of the women in the group had atherosclerosis or blocked arteries, the usual causes of heart attack, researchers noted.
