Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 January 2024
Symptoms relating to the musculoskeletal system are among the most common complaints registered by pregnant women. The maternal axial skeleton is subjected to considerable gestational changes and stresses; congenital and acquired skeletal anomalies may impact both the process and outcome of gestation and labor. The most common anomaly is scoliosis, arising either in the idiopathic form or from an underlying neuromuscular disorder. Other less common conditions include symptomatic lumbar disc herniation, ankylosing spondylitis, spondylolysis, and spondylolisthesis. Most scoliotic patients will experience pregnancy, labor, and delivery with a similar incidence of complications as the general population. However, within the population of scoliotic parturients, there is a subpopulation at higher risk for morbidity and mortality. These patients include those with scoliosis resulting from neuromuscular disorders and severe restrictive pulmonary disease complicated by pulmonary hypertension. A multidisciplinary team approach best serves these patients. The obstetric and anesthetic management of patients with less common and less extreme vertebral syndromes is guided by individual case characteristics.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.