Heart flutters during pregnancy

[Colby52]

I am 38 and 11 weeks pregnant with my 4th child. Since I became pregnant, I have had heart flutters 5-30 times per day, 1-3 seconds each every day. When I have the heart flutter I get an immediate rushing headache in the front/top of my head that lasts about a minute or so. I have a ache between my shoulder blades when I breathe. I am often short of breath and constantly nauseous (welcome to pregnancy) and feel sick/heavy in my chest. I had occasional heart flutters (once every couple of weeks) prior to becoming pregnant. I did not have this with my previous pregnancies. I have cut out all caffeine. It happens whether I am happy and resting in bed as well as when I am stressed. It doesn't seem to change. I saw a internal medicine physician who listened to my heart with a stethescope and said everything sounded normal. He said to call if they became more than I could handle.

Is this normal? How many per day isn't normal? Can this affect the baby? How much is too much - they are making me sick.

[jkfrench]

Hi
I had terrible  heart skips and flutters while I was pregnant.  My doctor told me the same thing, that I shouldn't worry.  I even did a stress test to make sure.  Just lots of skips.  It was terrible.  Nothing helped.  After about my 5 month, it did settle down.  Hopefully yours will too.  It is normal because of the wild hormone flucuation.  My doc told me it won't affect the baby and it didn't matter how many I had as long as my heart was structurally normal.  Have you had an echo?  That would help ease the stress.

Good luck and congratulations
Frenchie

[mjrichards21]

am 13 nearly 14 weeks pregnant and suffering with heart palpitation's at least 20-40x a day, they come on all of a sudden and last about a minute then just disappear i only seem to get them when sat down, it scares me a bit when i can feel them really bad in my chest i am a smoker but trying to quit
i havent been to see gp yet as i have only had them for a few days

[lazydog]

I am guessing you have a thyroid condition.  Probably all of you!!!!

Ask for thyroid blood tests INCLUDING antibodies.  

The first time I noticed heart palps was when I was pregnant with 1st child and things just kept getting worse and worse.

BUT make sure you get copies of your test results and check them out for yourself.  NEW TSH range is 0.3 to 3.0.  Anything over 2.5 needs to be treated.  It took me 11 years after my first palps to get a diagnosis.  Do not let this happen to you.  Get your test results.  Do not let them tell you "normal" or "borderline" when they may be reading reports from labs who still use old ranges up to 6.0!!!

Also especially as you pregnant, thyroid conditions can cause premature birth - as were both my children.  2nd was 6 weeks early but could have been 8 weeks early!!!

The breathing difficulty, chest like an elephant resting its foot on you, hair shedding, headaches, insomnia, vertigo, nausea (worse when pregnant), insomnia, heel pain, brain fog, blurred vision, smelling smoke, fatigue, swollen ankles, aching legs.....if you haven't got them now, then these are just a few things of what you're in for if left untreated.

Good luck girls.  Go and demand a thyroid blood test - TSH, FT4, FT3, thyroid antibodies....oh and get B12 done while you're at it.  Best wishes.

...Julia