Pregnancy: The Cardiac Stress Test You Can't Ignore

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

Michelle L. O'Donoghue, MD, MPH: Hi. This is Dr Michelle O'Donoghue, reporting for Medscape. Joining me today is Dr Rachel Bond. She is the systems director for women's cardiovascular health at Dignity Health in Arizona. Thanks for joining me today, Rachel.

Rachel M. Bond, MD: Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here.

Pregnancy-Related Risk Factors

O'Donoghue: At this conference, you're going to be talking about the issue of cardio-obstetrics. I'm so glad that this topic is finally getting the attention that it deserves because for far too long, we have not been incorporating obstetrics into a woman's cardiovascular history. Really, it should play a key part.

What are your thoughts about what doctors should be asking patients when they're trying to understand what their cardiovascular risk factors are?

Bond: You're absolutely right, that it's such an exciting time in the world of cardio-obstetrics. I would say, particularly this year, it's so timely with us realizing that cardiovascular disease occurs across the lifespan. We know that a key part during a woman's age is reproductive health, if they do decide to have a child.

With that being said, when it comes to us as cardiologists, in addition to the traditional history that we take, which looks at those traditional risk factors like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and smoking history — things that disproportionately impact more women than men, as an example — we also have to think about cardio-obstetrics and the reproductive health of that particular patient.