First, let me state that wpw in pregnancy is a complicated issue. Most of the management relates to symptoms. If you have lots of symptoms of racing heart beats from your wpw and are not pregnant now, consider catheter ablation. It's relatively safe and very effective (in skilled hands) at curing this problem up front and will never complicate future prenancies if successful. If you have no symptoms of racing heart beats, it's difficult to say how pregnancy will effect the frequency of future arrhythmic events. You see, your blood volume increases 20% during the pregnancy in preparation for delivery, so your heart has to work harder during that time. If you start to develop rapid heart rhythms during preganacy, some drop in blood pressure can occur, and this can theoretically decrease blood flow to the baby slightly. Whether this with effect the pregnancy is difficult to say.... In this case, an electrophysiology study (to test the 'short-circuit' caused by wpw), might make sense, and if needed catheter ablation of the short circuit could be accomplished at the same time. If you are pregnant, however, then it is unlikely anyone will perform either procedure since xrays are used, and docs don't want to expose the fetus to xray.

Hope this helps a health forum with your doctor, too.

And wpw and high blood pressure aren't generally related.

All the best-

--boombox

I have wpw and I do not take meds either. I have not had an ablation and I delivered my son with absolutely no problems whatsoever. I hope that makes you fell better. :d

I found out in dec./04 that I have wpw. I have 2 sons and I had no problem with my pregnancies. When they were toddlers, I did have chest pain but I never got it checked. I was a stay at home mom until 2 yrs. Ago. I have a family history of strokes and heart attacks. My brother just had a stroke last aug. , so when I started to have chest pains again (in nov./04) I went to the doctors.
Did you talk to your doctor about having children? I would see what they would say.
Good luck. :)

The one time I have been able to see a specialist she told me just to talk to my ob which has no idea what wpw is, so that didn't really help. I have one child already, he is now almost 2 1/2. My wpw didn't become "active" until over a year after he was born. I have read that alot of women get their first palpitation or whatever during pregnancy but I just don't know. Because of insurance I can't go to a specialist any more til 2007 so i'm looking for a doctor that does know what it is. I hope we find one soon.

Thanks for the info though it makes me more confident that I won't have any problems if I did get prego. :d