UC Davis Health enhances and expands multidisciplinary Pregnancy Heart Team

UC Davis Health is enhancing and expanding its Pregnancy Heart Team.

The effort builds on an established multidisciplinary approach to provide more integrated, coordinated care for pregnant patients with complex cardiovascular conditions and those who develop heart-related complications during pregnancy.

The enhanced team brings together experts from the UC Davis Women's Cardiovascular Medicine Program, Adult Congenital Heart Disease, Advanced Heart Failure and Maternal-Fetal Medicine within the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Together, they provide comprehensive care from pregnancy planning through delivery and the postpartum period.

"The growing complexity of cardiovascular disease in pregnancy requires a highly collaborative approach," said Amparo C. Villablanca, director of the UC Davis Women's Cardiovascular Medicine Program.

"The enhanced Pregnancy Heart Team brings together the expertise of multiple specialists in a more integrated model ensuring patients benefit from coordinated care," added Villablanca, who is also Frances Lazda Endowed Chair and Women's Cardiovascular Medicine chair.

The team's goals include identifying cardiovascular risk early, establishing streamlined referral pathways, coordinating maternal cardiac care, delivering evidence-based treatment and providing comprehensive follow-up after delivery.

Meeting a growing need

Heart disease is the leading cause of death during pregnancy, and the rates of cardiovascular disease during pregnancy continues to rise due to factors such as:

• Increasing maternal age at first pregnancy
• More women with congenital heart disease surviving to childbearing age
• Rising rates of cardiovascular risk factors and comorbidities before pregnancy, including hypertension, obesity, and diabetes

In addition, patients who experience adverse pregnancy outcomes - including gestational diabetes, gestational hypertension and preeclampsia - face an increased lifelong risk of future major adverse cardiac events. This also makes long-term follow-up and secondary prevention essential components of care.

The growing recognition of these risks is reflected in the recently updated clinical practice guidelines from the European Society of Cardiology for the management of cardiovascular disease during pregnancy. The revised recommendations emphasize the importance of multidisciplinary pregnancy heart teams in providing coordinated, evidence-based care to improve maternal and fetal outcomes.

"Pregnancy is a time of tremendous physiologic change and cardiometabolic demand, and for patients with cardiovascular disease, even routine decisions can require careful coordination across multiple specialties," said Herman Hedriana, director of Maternal Fetal Medicine.

"Our Pregnancy Heart Team," Hedriana continued, "brings experts together to create a unified care plan for each patient, allowing us to anticipate complications, respond quickly when challenges arise and provide the highest level of care for both mother and baby throughout pregnancy, delivery and the postpartum period."

The Pregnancy Heart Team is led by Villablanca and includes Radhika Nandur Bukkapatnam, Imo Ebong and Sandhya Venugopal from Cardiovascular Medicine. It also includes, along with Hedriana, Nina Boe, Zahabiya Chithiwala, Nancy Field, Carolyn Reyes, Krishna Singh and Leanna Sudhof from Maternal-Fetal Medicine.

Beyond patient care, the team will provide education and training opportunities for residents and fellows in Obstetrics and Gynecology, Maternal Fetal Medicine and Cardiovascular Medicine. The group will also track maternal outcomes to support ongoing improvements in patient care.

"By bringing cardiovascular and maternal-fetal medicine expertise together in a single, coordinated model, the Pregnancy Heart Team aims to provide patients with complex cardiovascular conditions with the specialized care they need at every stage of pregnancy - while strengthening education, collaboration and outcomes across the health system," added Villablanca.