• DOI:10.1161/01.cir.44.5.964
• Corpus ID: 21134233

Peripartum Cardiomyopathy

@article{Demakis1971PeripartumC,
  title={Peripartum Cardiomyopathy},
  author={John G. Demakis and Shahbudin H. Rahimtoola},
  journal={Circulation},
  year={1971},
  volume={44},
  pages={964–968}
}

• J. Demakis, S. Rahimtoola
• Published 1 November 1971
• Medicine
• Circulation

PERIPARTUM CARDIOMYOPATHY, a disorder of heart muscle, presents clinically with the onset of cardiac failure in the last month of pregnancy or in the first 5 postpartum months. The first description of idiopathic myocardial failure with onset in the puerperium has been attributed to Ritchie in 1849.1 Postpartum cardiomyopathy was again recognized in 1937 by Hull and Hafkesbring and by Gouley et al.2 Since some of the reported patients developed cardiac failure in the last month of pregnancy it is probably more appropriate to use the term "peripartum cardiomyopathy" (PPCM)4 rather than postpartum cardiomyopathy. The criteria for the diagnosis of PPCM are: (1) development of heart failure in the last month of pregnancy or within the first 5 postpartum months, (2) absence of a determinable etiology for the cardiac failure, and (3) absence of demonstrable heart disease prior to the last month of pregnancy. Thus, congenital, or acquired heart disease or myocardial disease due to determinable causes are presumed to be absent.