I'm wondering if there is less stress on the mom's cardiovascular system during a pre-term delivery than a full-term delivery. This is outside my wheelhouse, but smaller baby = smaller cardiovascular stress is my hypothesis. Anesthesia-free data would be ideal. Thanks in advance!
There are a lot of factors other than baby size involved here. Preterm deliveries can be, for example, because of pre-eclampsia, and so the whole haemodynamics involved are different. Other causes of preterm delivery likewise – a preterm delivery isn't a normal delivery that happened early, it's a pregnancy that ended unusually.
Heart rate is also only a proxy for what is going on with the haemodynamics. Cardiac output and peripheral resistance are probably more important in pregnancy than heart rate. Less so blood pressure, as the same pressure can be generated by low output + high resistance and by high output + low resistance.
Dear Professor Ronán Michael Conroy,
Thank you! My initial thoughts were overly simplistic, and you have provided me with a better direction in which to search. Your help is very much appreciated.
Best regards,
Ian
There is a lot, an awful lot, of literature on the haemodynamics of pregnancy!
Even in normal pregnancy, heart rate increases.
May-be the article in the RG link below my help you:
Article Maternal heart rate patterns under resting conditions in lat...
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