PHOTOS COURTESY EMILY MICK

Emily Mick was told she shouldn’t have a baby.

Diagnosed in her mid-20s with a condition that causes the heart muscle to become thick and have to work harder, the veterinary technician says doctors were worried that her heart couldn’t handle a pregnancy. Another concern was that she could pass on the genetic condition to her offspring.

But today, she and her husband have a healthy 2-year-old keeping them on their toes in their Lisbon, Ohio, home.

Mick’s case of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is treated with medication and a defibrillator and she’s able to lead a normal life. But pregnancy and delivery can put a strain on the heart as it’s pumping blood to both mother and baby.

“There are cardiovascular issues that may arise during pregnancy or delivery, because we look at pregnancy almost like a stress test,” says Dr. Indu Poornima, co-founder of the cardio-obstetrics clinic at Allegheny Health Network and the director of AHN’s Women’s Heart Center and Preventive Cardiology.

“It’s the first stress test that a young woman may have, where if she had underlying heart issues that may become manifest.”

The reasons pregnancy is the first stress test for women are that women are getting pregnant later in life and there’s a higher prevalence of obesity, high blood pressure, early diabetes, or pre-diabetes in women who are getting pregnant.

“As a result of all that, we are likely seeing a higher incidence of cardiovascular issues becoming kind of manifest during pregnancy and delivery,” Dr. Poornima says.

Years ago, patients with congenital heart disease may not have lived long enough to get pregnant. 

“Now, thanks to all the advances that we’ve made in congenital heart disease, patients undergo surgeries and they pretty much have a complete lifetime ahead,” Dr. Poornima says. “As a result … we are seeing more young women who have maybe had surgeries as a child now wanting to get pregnant, which is great.”

Despite being told she shouldn’t get pregnant, Mick and her husband remained hopeful. Her primary care physician connected her with the cardio-obstetrics clinic at AHN, and she had extensive genetic testing done to see if she could pass on her condition to future children. Doctors were able to narrow down her chances.

“There weren’t any definite answers, but it made me more confident about trying,” she says. “[My high-risk doctor] said, ‘There are things that can happen, but this is what we’re going to do to try to complete the journey.’

That doctor was one of the first people who told her: You could probably have a baby. 

“That was kind of a big deal,” she says.

Mick says because of potential complications her doctors didn’t want her pregnancy to progress to the full 40 weeks, so they decided to induce her labor at West Penn Hospital at 38 weeks. After two days of labor with no progression, doctors performed a C-section, which they had hoped to avoid because of how her heart could handle blood loss. 

“I had some really great nurses and doctors and they were very confident but honest about the concerns,” Mick says. “I was a little bit nervous, but it actually went great.”

Mick’s daughter was born completely healthy with no heart murmur but will go in for testing every few years to check for any issues. 

“She’s really brought in so much positivity into our world and I’m really happy I had doctors that told me that I should try and it is possible for me to give birth and have a healthy baby,” Mick says. “That was really important to us and my family.”