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Anyone can join; as a heart sister, relative of a deceased heart sister, cardiologist or community member.

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WOMEN IN HEART FAILURE

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HEART FAILURE SCREENING TOOL

Heart Failure Screening tool

SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT PPCM

Spread the word about PPCM. You can do this in so many ways and with awareness, lives will be saved.

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Myheartsisters.com has been developed to raise awareness about heart failure in pregnancy (PPCM) and provide support for heart sisters through storytelling and friendship. 

Know the symptoms of heart failure before, after and during pregnancy and save lives. Don’t let PPCM continue to be the silent killer. Join our community today and help save lives. See How to Join or feel free to Contact us for any questions.

Share Your Story

Every PPCM story is unique and every heart sister is a hero. Share your story of diagnosis, recovery, post PPCM pregnancy and update your profile and let members know how you are doing. Your journey does not have to be alone. Stories can be tagged public or private. You will need to join to read all the stories. See How to Join

Updates

For now, new stories and website updates will be updated on http://www.facebook.com/myheartsisters . You will also need to "LIKE" this community page to get facebook news feeds.

Bumper Stickers promoting PPCM Awareness

You can order a bumper sticker to help raise awareness of pregnancy induced heart failure. Click on the image below for ordering and pricing information.

PPCM T-shirts

Amy, from Opabox has created some beautiful t-shirts with myheartsisters.com link printed on them. Silk screen printed on white cotton, you can click on the links to view and order your shirt. Supporter shirts are now available, so now your family and friends can order a t-shirt too.

PPCM SUPPORTER WOMEN	PPCM KIDS SHIRTS
PPCM TODDLERS SHIRTS	PPCM WARRIOR SHIRTS

Heart Failure in Pregnancy

Having a baby should be one of the happiest times of a woman’s life but unfortunately for some women, the experience turns into nightmare. Although most people are aware of haemorrhage causing death in pregnancy few are aware of a condition where the heart enlarges and becomes unable to pump sufficient blood to support the body. This condition is known as Peripartum or Postpartum Cardiomyopathy (PPCM).

In PPCM, heart cells become damaged through an inflammatory process, and a woman can go from healthy to complete heart failure in hours, days, weeks or months after giving birth and sometimes while pregnant. It is one pregnancy complication that is rarely spoken about and because no one talks about it, it continues to claim lives and cause incredible suffering. It is a silent killer because left untreated often leads to death. Ignorance is not bliss when it comes to heart failure in pregnancy. Many medical personnel are also ignorant about PPCM, and that is why raising awareness is essential to saving lives because PPCM is one disease that has excellent outcomes if treated early. Delays in treatment can lead to disability and death. Many women do go on to recover full heart function, however many women also continue to struggle with the disabling effects of the disease for many years.

We are told that the condition is rare but no one really knows whether it is rare of just not diagnosed. In Haiti the estimated incidence is 1 in 299 livebirths, in South Africa 1 in 1000 livebirths and  in the USA, the National Hospital Discharge Survey (1990-2002) estimated that the condition occurs in one in every 2,289 live births in the United States

Many PPCM survivors tell of long struggles to get proper diagnosis and they are often brushed off by their doctors when they report their symptoms. Unfortunately, some women are not diagnosed until after they have suffered a cardiac arrest or death.

All women should know the symptoms of heart failure and know when to seek medical help.

The symptoms of PPCM include:

• Difficulty breathing while lying flat
• Cough
• Shortness of breath on exertion
• Swelling (edema) above and below the knee
• Palpitations – awareness of heart beating
• Pink sputum

A woman may initially exert one or all of these symptoms, and many will have their symptoms dismissed as normal signs of pregnancy

HEART FAILURE SCREENING TOOL

Heart Failure Screening tool

Everything you ever learnt about heart disease being caused by age, smoking, lifestyle, diet, stress, alcohol etc does NOT necessarily apply to PPCM. The cause is unknown.

What we do know is that pregnancy is stressful on the body and heart failure in pregnancy happens to women of all ages. Read PPCM Stories, know the symptoms, educate yourself About PPCM, because the earlier the diagnosis is made, and treatment started the better the outcomes. You could very well be saving your life or a life of someone you know.

PPCM is a silent killer and education about PPCM is the key to saving lives!

Read more About PPCM, and what it is and why it happens.

PPCM Recovery has information about recovering from PPCM

Pass the word:

Start a discussion. Too many people shy away from discussing heart failure in pregnancy because it is just too frightening and they think, it will never happen to them or anyone they know.  Unfortunately, that is not true. PPCM is one disease that has good outcomes if diagnosed and treated and devastating outcomes if it is ignored.

It happens to women of all ages and all races. It happens to women who have C-sections and women who birth at home. It does not discriminate.

Too many doctors, midwives, doulas, nurses, obstetricians are IGNORANT about PPCM and its symptoms, diagnosis, prognosis, treatment and outcomes and most women have never heard of PPCM.

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