Anesthetic management of parturients with peripartum cardiomyopathy

Abstract Peripartum cardiomyopathy (PPCM) is a rare life-threatening cardiomyopathy of unknown cause that occurs in the peripartum period in previously healthy women, and is becoming the leading cause of maternal death in U.S.A and U.K. Anesthesiologists are supposed to be involved in the deliveries of those parturients with PPCM by providing labor analgesia, anesthesia for cesarean section and for heart transplantation. For cesarean section, either regional anesthesia or general anesthesia can be chosen, but low dose combined spinal-epidural analgesia has been reported to be a reliable choice.