The pregnant patient in intensive care unit

Abstract

Intensive Care Unit (ICU) admission of pregnant patient is rare, however, the ortality rate of obstetric patients admitted to the ICU is high. The objective of this paper is to present some aspects of the physiologic changes in pregnancy and the most important points of the fetal well-being in order to provide the best management for the critically ill pregnant patient. Several topics were presented such as preeclapsia, amniotic fluid embolism, tocolitic-induced pulmonary edema, obstetric hemorrhage, obstetric infections and trauma in pregnancy. The knowledge of the pregnant patient and fetal physiology as well as the obstetric complications are very important in order to avoid maternal mortality due suboptimal standard of care.