Rare vascular condition can afflict pregnant women

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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/03/09/financi

al0945EST0053.DTL&type=health

.... Vascular ruptures in the chest and abdomen -- which are fatal if not

caught quickly enough -- primarily occur in men over 50. But when this

condition does strike young women, often it is during pregnancy. Some

vascular experts say this fact gets too little attention in medical

training. By the third trimester, a woman's blood volume increases by as

much as 50 percent, testing the elasticity of blood vessels. Women with a

family history of aneurysms, as well as those with a syndrome called

Marfan's, are at higher risk for the problem. But it can strike anyone.

.... The association between vascular ruptures and pregnancy tends to be

drilled into high-risk obstetricians and to cardiologists who specialize in

pregnancy. Vascular ruptures are the subject of a chapter in a classic

medical textbook called " Cardiac Problems in Pregnancy. " And women known to

have aneurysms of the aorta, the body's largest artery, or who have

Marfan's, often are discouraged from bearing children at all.

But most at-risk women aren't aware of their susceptibility, and they don't

see such specialists when they are stricken. Rather, they go to their

general obstetrician or rush to an emergency-medicine doctor. ...