Lourdes Arias-Solbes was shocked when doctors at a Mexican hospital told her she was in dire need of a new heart valve. What they said next was even more devastating.
“The first thing they told me was, ‘You shouldn’t have gotten pregnant,’” recalled Arias-Solbes, who was six months pregnant at the time. “‘Your condition is critical, and being pregnant makes it worse.’”
The 35-year-old had been diagnosed with severe aortic stenosis, a narrowing of the heart valve that restricts blood flow, after fainting on the way home from her baby shower Oct. 1. Doctors told her they needed to take immediate action to avoid the risk of complications during her third trimester.
They arranged for Arias-Solbes and her husband, Rolando Gerez, to travel to Houston Methodist for treatment. At first, the Houston Methodist team worried that Arias-Solbes might need to deliver at 28 weeks because her heart would not be able to work hard enough to pump blood for herself and the baby. Premature births carry risks, such as an underdeveloped heart and lungs along with complications later in life.
Then doctors offered a solution. The Houston Methodist team determined that Arias-Solbes was a candidate for transcatheter aortic valve replacement, a minimally invasive procedure where a surgeon uses a blood vessel to access a patient’s heart. The Oct. 16 surgery marked the first time Methodist has used TAVR to treat a pregnant person.
I’m glad she had a good outcome. But this isn’t the first time a TAVR was done on a pregnant person. A quick search shows one from 2016, 2022, 2020, and another from 2022. It’s nice to have more confidence in this option for a pregnant person with severe aortic valve stenosis.
The article makes it sound like it’s the first instance of this situation, but it looks like it’s the first time it was performed by a Methodist-based healthcare organization.
