curious if anyone has been thru a pregnancy on CPAP

[SenjiMom]

Hi

I'm a new CPAP pt. recently diagnosed with UARS. I am actually a Respiratory Therapist, which is kind of funny.... so I'm not new to CPAP in that respect. Been taking care of people for 10 years, just not myself.

Anyway, I know that pregnancy changes your body & upper airway anatomy. My husband and I plan to start a family in the near future. I was talking with a doc at work who's done lots of research on pregnancy & sleep disorders. I'm worried about developing preeclampsia. I'm not obese, I fall into the overweight category based on BMI. My other issue is that I have a slightly elevated BP now. It seems intermittent and varies depending on sleep quality the night prior and stress level. Does anyone have any insight or advice to share? much appreciated. I'm happy to have joined

jen

[HoseCrusher]

I have no insight to offer about going through pregnancy, but I do know that the best thing you can do is to prepare yourself by taking the best care of yourself that you can. By using your xPAP machine, you will strengthen your body and that has to help with pregnancy.

On the lighter side... The details of how to manage an xPAP machine while going through labor may be good subject matter for a book.

[cflame1]

try looking up posts by a user named socknitster

memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=16837

I'm sure that there's been others, but she's one that comes to mind.

[SleepingUgly]

I don't know much about this, but I'd make sure to get an AutoPap, in case you need to make pressure adjustments when you're pregnant due to weight fluctuations. I'd get on CPAP now and try to be used to it so that when you start sleeping worse due to pregnancy, it won't be further worsened by trying to acclimate to CPAP.

[hbakar]

I was thinking about posting the same thing...My husband and I want to get pregnant in the next couple of months and I was wondering if anyone here had an experience with OSA-CPAP and pregnancy?

[archangle]

Very good question.

I feel pretty confident you and baby will be better off with CPAP than without. I wonder if there are any good controlled studies about CPAP for the expectant mom. And if expectant moms without apnea tend to develop apnea while pregnant.

If you do get pregnant, be sure to plan ahead on how to be sure you get proper CPAP while in the hospital. From what I've heard here, a lot of hospitals are not at all CPAP friendly. Maybe you can edumacate a few people at the hospital about CPAP for patients.

[Guest]

I'm worried about developing preeclampsia

When I read your post, I remembered something I read a few days ago in a medical journal. This is not relevant to your question about CPAP therapy, but perhaps you would be interested in it nonetheless. It is new information relating to preventing preeclampsia, and your doctor may not be aware of this interesting study yet.

You'll have to fix up the link. Sorry.

www bmj com / content / 342 / bmj .d2901

[Sleepy Taz]

I went through a pregnancy while on Cpap, it was a snap. Of course my wife would disagree. Seriously when you sleep without your Cpap you deprive your system of oxygen for the blood and in turn your baby would also be deprived. I bet there are many who do not know that they have sleep apnea and their child has problems in the future just because of that deprivation. I have no stats to back that up but for me I would not want to chance it.

[Emilia]

You could PM forum user, Dr. Park, to ask him.... he's the expert! memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=41097 Maybe he'll do a post so we can all know the answer to this.

My instincts tells me that if you are using APAP to provide good pressure, and your O2 is being addressed as a result, you and your baby can only benefit from this therapy!

[Emilia]

I went to Dr. Park's site and put 'pregnancy' into his search engine.... this is result http://doctorstevenpark.com/index.php?s=pregnancy Be warned, some of those are a bit scary sounding....

EDIT: this one is very good: http://doctorstevenpark.com/what-all-pr ... -must-know

[sleepdeprivedemt]

Probably all the advice that I can give is not to sleep on your left side or directly on your back, so you'll have to sleep on your right side. The Vena Cava flows on the left side of your body and supplies the heart with deoxygenated blood. Put too much pressure on that and you may pass out in your sleep, or worse, come down with Eclampsia.


Be safe, and talk with your Doc about CPAP therapy while pregnant, First trimester may be ok, but Second and definatly Third is when you need to be the most careful.

[So Well]

Since a lot of things will be changing I recommend you get an APAP machine with software to monitor the effectiveness of your therapy.

Due to increased weight your pressure requirements may change and your mask might leak. The software will give you excellent data to check whether your therapy is working properly.

I manage my therapy with my software even though there is little chance I will ever get pregnant.

[SenjiMom]

Hi All

thanks so much for all the advice. I will definitely look at Dr. Park's website, thanks for the links! I will also look up the article from BMJ, thanks!

I am already consistently wearing my CPAP w/o missing a night. It is an auto-titrating CPAP with the data card also. So good on those points.

Archangel - I would definitely bring my CPAP to the hospital with me. Many respiratory departments at hospitals do not have home care models of CPAP machines. They might have a handful of really outdated ones and some of the ones we use for the ICU and ER settings. These ones are big and kinda noisy. They are more for patients that are in COPD or CHF (congestive heart failure) exacerbation. The masks and interfaces are also not nearly as nice as home units. Home interfaces are way more expensive than the products we use for emergent cases that will get thrown out. So, if someone goes to the hospital for big toe surgery and leaves their CPAP at home, they are stuck with the hospital stuff. So, in that sense, yes hospitals are not CPAP-friendly.

Hbakar - Here is the little bit that I do know. Women without baseline sleep issues can develop them once pregnant. So those of us that already have sleep disorders are in more trouble. Your pregnant belly pushes up on the other anatomy, further shortening your trachea. This can worsen the airway collapse that already occurs. Also, if you have baseline elevated Blood pressure (BP) b/c of your sleep disorder, when pregnant your body will have more demand on your heart. Therefore, your BP can elevate further. Preeclampsia is a risk of pregnancy in which your BP is high and you have protein in your urine. Some women develop preeclampsia for no known reason. Women with sleep disorders are at risk for it. Women often end up on bed rest until the baby is developed enough for a c-section. The risk doesn't stop there. If the high BP is sustained after delivering, combined with seizure activity, you can go into Eclampsia which is fatal. YES, scary!!!

I guess those of us being in the know of this are in better shape than those that wouldn't expect a problem OR those that don't get any prenatal care. I'm planning to get a little BP monitor for my home, once pregnant.

jen