An Al1alysis of Cardiac Assessment Cases In Antenatal Ward (Colonial War Memorial Hospital)

Pregnancy is a time of life where undiagnosed or subclinical heart disease, in particular, rheumatic heart disease, may
become apparent or overt and pose a risk to the life of the
mother, infant or both. In the Colonial War Memorial Hospital (CWMH), antenatal clinics and booking visits serve to screen and identify risk factors that might be of potential risk in pregnancy. One of the parameters during booking visits are sign or symptoms of cardiac disease. Rheumatic heart disease and one of its potential sequelae, valvular heart disease is commonly identified clinically as an apparent murmur antenatally. Once a murmur is identified, in the Antenatal Clinic (ANC) setting, an assessment for whether the murmur is pathological is made.
In CWMH the process of assessment includes an admission in the Antenatal Ward (ANW), routine blood tests (FBC & DECr), a Chest Xray (CXR), an electrocardiograph (ECG) and a referral to the Medical Team oncall requesting an assessment, whereupon a
decision is made for further investigation. Further investigations may include echo cardiography. Since beginning my attachment in Obstetrics & Gynaecology (O&G), I have seen many cases admitted for cardiac assessment. The purpose of this analysis is to analyse the number of cases being admitted to ANW for
cardiac assessment and to ascertain how many of these
admissions are subsequently proven to have a pathological heart lesion