Difficulties in diagnosing peripartum cardiomyopathy with a background of a new coronaviral infection during the high-risk pregnancy

   Peripartum cardiomyopathy, or Meadow’s cardiomyopathy, is an uncommon but difficult to diagnose disease in the last month of pregnancy or during the five months of the postpartum period. Errors in diagnosis can lead to an incorrect diagnosis and, consequently, to the prescription of inadequate treatment, which is fraught with serious consequences. The presence of a new coronavirus infection can lead to a change in the clinical picture and present certain difficulties for verifying the diagnosis. This clinical case demonstrates the acute development of heart failure against the background of peripartum cardiomyopathy in a patient with a new coronavirus infection. During hospitalization, against the background of characteristic complaints (shortness of breath, shortness of breath, swelling in the legs and pronounced weakness), a cesarean section was successfully performed. Further diagnostics made it possible to establish the diagnosis of peripartum cardiomyopathy.
Since the pathology in question is a diagnosis of exclusion, it is necessary to carry out a differential diagnosis with diseases such as latent idiopathic and familial dilated cardiomyopathies before pregnancy, asymptomatic heart defects, pulmonary embolism. In the treatment of peripartum cardiomyopathy, special attention is paid to the prescription of bromocriptine as the basis of pathogenetic therapy. The presented clinical case demonstrates the importance of timeliness and correctness of diagnostic search in patients with characteristic complaints in the last month of pregnancy or in the postpartum period, complicated by the addition of a new coronavirus infection.

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