Lung diseases in pregnancy.

When physicians encounter pregnant patients with respiratory complaints, they face a challenging set of clinical problems. To understand the clinical cardiopulmonary manifestations of diseases occurring during pregnancy, knowledge of the basic physiologic changes during pregnancy is necessary. The most prevalent chest related complaint in pregnant women is shortness of breath, which is in most cases due to an unpleasant awareness of physiological gestational hyperventilation. Lung diseases which are frequently seen in young people, such as bronchial asthma, occur with comparable prevalence in pregnant women. Clinical symptoms, diagnosis and treatment of most diseases do not differ from those in the nonpregnant state. However, pharmacotherapy presents unique aspects, since not only may pharmacokinetics differ, but the fetus must also be assumed to be a recipient of the drug.