Continuous spinal anesthesia for cesarean section in a parturient with severe recurrent peripartum cardiomyopathy.

The anesthetic management of labor and delivery in patients with peripartum cardiomyopathy is not well defined. Using continuous spinal anesthesia in such a rare clinical situation has not been previously reported. A patient with recurrent peripartum cardiomyopathy presented in congestive heart failure for emergent cesarean section. Continuous spinal anesthesia was successfully employed as the anesthetic technique for the procedure. In addition, it also markedly reduced the patient's symptoms. Continuous spinal anesthesia is a reliable, rapidly titratable technique, which provides excellent analgesia with minimal undesirable hemodynamic changes for patients with peripartum cardiomyopathy undergoing cesarean delivery.