Mother dies post pregnancy (weeks, years, normal, failure)

[howard555]

A 36 year old gave birth normally in December. In March she died from heart failure due to water - fluid - liquid in her belly. I have not done research on this type of issue and I'm only going by what I was told by a friend. What can any of you share about this untimely cause of death? Thanks.

Please move this to another forum if this is not the proper one.

[SnazzyB]

I did a tiny amount of research. It sounds like she developed ascites, which is fluid built up in the abdomen. It's caused by deminished liver function, and that can happen for lots of reasons...but just from the little bit of research I did, it's not a post partum kind of thing.

But all I read was here in this link:
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/healt.../14792-ascites

[suzy_q2010]

Possibly postpartum cardiomyopathy.

https://www.heart.org/en/health-topi...omyopathy-ppcm

[TashaPosh]

Originally Posted by howard555

A 36 year old gave birth normally in December. In March she died from heart failure due to water - fluid - liquid in her belly. I have not done research on this type of issue and I'm only going by what I was told by a friend. What can any of you share about this untimely cause of death? Thanks.

Please move this to another forum if this is not the proper one.

Refractory ascites is most common in alcohol overuse & liver disease over years. It probably didn’t have anything to do with her being postpartum tho there are super rare complications. If she had a healthy pregnancy & normal delivery, she should still have seen a doctor after a few weeks & for a complete checkup at 12 weeks. So IMO, it’s sad she would die in March after delivering in December & probably preventable…unless there is more to it than that ofc, like alcohol abuse or other disease. Did she have access to postpartum care?