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Surgical gastrointestinal disorders during pregnancy.

Parangi S, Levine D, Henry A, Isakovich N, Pories S

Department of Surgery, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. sparangi@bidmc.harvard.edu

All gastrointestinal (GI) disorders can present during pregnancy, and in fact 0.2% to 1.0% of all pregnant women require non-obstetrical general surgery. All of the clinical decision-making skills of the experienced surgeon must come into play in order to make the correct therapeutic decisions when evaluating the pregnant patient with a GI disorder that potentially requires surgery. While in general the principles of diagnosing and treating a pregnant woman with an acute surgical abdominal problem remain the same as those governing the treatment of the non-pregnant patient, some important differences are present and can pose problems. As a general rule the condition of the mother should always take priority because proper treatment of surgical diseases in the mother will usually benefit the fetus as well as the mother.

Published 22 January 2007 in Am J Surg, 193(2): 223-32.
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