Anatomical and functional changes in the venous system during pregnancy were detected by the air plethysmography and the vascular ultrasound in primigravidae. In pregnant women, the presence of venous stasis symptoms found an anatomical and functional substrate detected in the differences in diameter of the saphenous vein.
The hyperkinetic hemodynamic pattern and the low viscosity of the blood are typical during pregnancy and cause a number of auscultatory changes. The main goal of this study was to describe hemodynamic and auscultatory changes in normal pregnant women and compare them to those of non-pregnant women. Digital heart auscultation and Doppler echocardiography tests were performed in 29 pregnant and 27 nonpregnant women, both healthy. Changes in the digital stethoscope auscultation and Doppler echocardiographic findings were compared between the groups. The low-intensity systolic murmur was statistically more frequent in the pregnant group (69.0% x 40.7%, p=0.034), as well as B1 Hyperphonesis (51.7% x 7.4%, p<0.001), B2 Hyperphonesis (69% x 18.5%, p<0.001) and B1 Split (89.7% x 29.6%, p<0.001). In pregnant women, no associations were found between auscultation findings and Doppler echocardiogram changes (mitral-murmur x mitral-regurgitation, p=0.675; tricuspid-murmur x tricuspidregurgitation, p=1.000; pulmonary-murmur x pulmonary-regurgitation, p=1.000). The digital heart auscultation of healthy pregnant subjects was able to detect frequent and numerous alterations, confirming the importance of knowing the physiological changes of pregnancy. The normal Doppler echocardiogram in all healthy pregnant women with heart murmur indicates that such test has limited applicability for healthy pregnant subjects, only in cases of suspicion of a heart disease or when it does occur.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.