The condition weakens the heart’s ability to pump blood through the body. Peripartum cardiomyopathy, also known as postpartum cardiomyopathy, is a type of heart failure that occurs during the last month of pregnancy or up to five months after giving birth. RELATED: Black Women Still Most at Risk for Heart-Related Pregnancy Complications I thought heart issues happened to people who were older or less active.” “I didn’t think things like this could happen to me,” she says. When Rohe heard the news, she was speechless. She returned to the hospital where she was readmitted and diagnosed with a rare form of heart failure called peripartum cardiomyopathy. Extreme fatigue set in and she had trouble breathing while walking up a flight of stairs. ![]() Soon after, she began experiencing shortness of breath, elevated heart rate, and fatigue, though she attributed this to normal postpartum symptoms.Ī few days later, her health quickly declined. ![]() Rohe went on to deliver her daughter Sienna in November 2017. “Unfortunately, that test doesn’t test for heart failure so my condition wouldn’t have been shown through that,” she says. In one scary incident, when Rohe was six months pregnant, she blacked out in a parking lot, but an EKG showed no abnormalities at the time. While some things were different - she had a lot of swelling and gained much more weight this time around - doctors told her this was common for many women during pregnancy. She had no problems when she gave birth to her son, Weston, two years earlier, and had little reason to believe her second pregnancy was anything but normal. I hope that my story can spread awareness that it can happen to anyone, and everyone needs to keep track of their heart health.”īack in 2017, the Olympia, Washington resident was pregnant with her second child. “We tend to think we’re invincible and don’t have to worry about these health issues until later. “I think a huge issue is the lack of awareness in younger women,” says Rohe, who is 33. ![]() Now, Rohe is sharing her experience as part of the American Heart Association (AHA) Go Red for Women movement’s “Real Women” campaign to spread awareness that new moms like her need to be aware of the risk of heart disease. The experience was “incredibly shocking,” she recalls, as she had never had any issues with her heart before. Three years ago, Jen Rohe went from delivering a healthy baby girl to being diagnosed with heart failure and getting a heart transplant in the span of just 50 days.
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