Grant: Operating Grant:H&S Res Netwo. Excellence Women Heart/Brain Health- Risk Factors

Pregnancy results in major changes in how a person’s heart and blood vessels function. These changes could not only result in life-threatening complications to people with heart disease, but also in those without known heart disease who are not able to tolerate these changes. Heart-related conditions are among the leading causes of death and serious illness among pregnant individuals in most countries. At least 50% of these deaths and serious illness is preventable. Individuals from Indigenous and ethnic minority populations are at a higher risk for complications than those identifying as White. If we understand the reasons behind these serious heart-related events, we will be able to prevent many of these events and improve outcomes for young families. Goal and Objectives: Our goal is to build a large network of experts from across Canada to work together towards reducing heart-related deaths and serious illness during and after pregnancy. To do this, we will (1) Review all heart-related deaths and serious illness in Canada by gathering and sharing information in a sensitive and respectful way and learn from them to prevent them from happening in the future. (2) Assess pregnant people with heart conditions after their pregnancies to ensure that they recover fully, so that they have fewer complications later in life (3) Find ways for pregnant people with heart valve disease to receive specialized care when needed, to improve outcomes for them and their babies. Research plan: First, we will establish a network of all 289 hospitals that care for pregnant people. When a heart-related death or serious illness occurs, we will encourage care providers to conduct a sensitive and respectful review and share important learning points confidentially, so that other care providers can learn from these events and prevent these events from happening in the future. Second, we will establish a network of nine large hospitals across Canada provide specialized care to pregnant people with heart disease. We will conduct studies during, after and between pregnancies to understand what impact pregnancy has on the heart, and how we can improve heart function between pregnancies, to allow patients to live longer and healthier lives. Finally, we will establish a network of all hospitals in Canada that care for pregnant patients with heart valve disease. We will test a special system we have developed to see if we can refer persons that need specialized care to bigger hospitals and ensure that they and their babies are safe. We will ask all pregnant persons involved in our studies whether they were treated with respect and allowed to make decisions based on their values, to improve the service we provide. We will also conduct studies to understand the impact of all our work on families and society, and the cost to keep these programs running. Expected outcomes: In addition to reducing deaths and serious illness, through the established networks we will be able to conduct high-quality research to improve the health of pregnant persons and babies for years to come.