PREGNANCY IS HEART HISTORY · PROPOSED NATIONAL INITIATIVE
Pregnancy Is Heart History is a proposed initiative to help women and healthcare teams keep pregnancy history in view as care continues through adulthood.
Pregnancy & Heart Health · Free family resource
Your babies had a medical history. So did you. Read the guide, record both histories, and download an appointment sheet to bring to your clinician.
Read the guide and download the appointment sheetAsk what happened, what symptoms she remembers, what she was told, and what happened afterward. Recognized adverse pregnancy outcomes include hypertensive disorders, gestational diabetes, preterm delivery, placental abruption, and fetal growth restriction; other experiences remain important context to preserve.
Keep key pregnancy details in the ongoing medical record, relevant referrals, and a summary the woman can keep. Record what is known and mark anything uncertain.
Use the history to support appropriate screening, risk-factor care, education, referral, and follow-up—matched to the individual and the clinician’s judgment.
The missing handoff
A woman can remember that something went wrong in pregnancy and still have no concise language, accessible record, or clear next question years later.
The proposal is to make pregnancy history easier to find and discuss at later appointments. A qualified clinician would decide what that history means alongside a woman’s current health, symptoms and established risk factors.
Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, gestational diabetes, preterm delivery, placental abruption, and fetal growth restriction are recognized adverse pregnancy outcomes associated with later cardiovascular risk. TTTS or other fetal complications, NICU care, pregnancy loss, infertility, and family reproductive history may be essential to a woman's story, but are not presented here as proof of maternal cardiovascular risk.
A starting point she can keep
Tier 1 captures what a woman remembers. Tier 2 can preserve timing, recurrence, symptoms, care, outcomes, and reproductive or family context—without requiring medical terminology and without producing a score.
Pilot only after review
A future pilot could test whether a healthcare team can ask, record, and respond to pregnancy history without creating excessive burden or widening inequities. Sample size, measures, analysis, privacy protections, and quality-improvement or research oversight would be defined with the participating organization and qualified reviewers before launch. The organization would determine whether IRB or ethics review is required. No pilot is currently active.
Agree on wording, workflow, privacy, training, eligibility, and aggregate measures.
Try the prompt and patient tool in real visits. Record whether they were completed and what made them difficult to use.
Refine the handoff, repeat training, and decide whether the model is ready to spread.
Who can help build the bridge
Test the workflow and record handoff.
Reach women before and between visits.
Review language and help clinicians use it accurately.
Strengthen evaluation, equity, and implementation design.
The first ask
No organization is presented as a partner, reviewer, or endorser without written permission for the exact language.