Surgical
disorders that affect women in the reproductive age group in general can be
expected to affect pregnant women with equal frequency, unless pregnancy
predisposes to development of those conditions, which increases the likelihood
even more. About 1 in 500 pregnancies need surgical intervention for
nonobstetric conditions. Thus it becomes necessary for an obstetrician as well
as a surgeon to know about of them. There are many surgical specialties, so
that the need to know about these disorders is manifold for an obstetrician
than for a surgeon of any one specialty. Some of these disorders affect a pregnancy
adversely, which is a point of concern for the obstetrician. Sometimes a
pregnancy may mask some symptoms and signs of some surgical disorders, making
the diagnosis difficult. Some of these disorders get aggravated by a pregnancy,
which is a point of concern for the respective surgeon. Surgical disorders
sometimes need surgical treatment, which involves administration of anesthesia,
which may adversely affect the gravida and/or her fetus. There is also the
matter of sufficient access for surgery in case of intraabdominal conditions,
as the enlarged uterus in pregnancy may compromise the access. Surgical
treatment also involves evaluation of the condition with different tests, the
results could be different on account of the pregnancy, and need for imaging
which might cause unnecessary irradiation of the fetus. Complications of the
surgery may affect the fetus adversely. Thus one has to make a decision on
whether to proceed with surgical treatment of a given condition, or to treat
the patient conservatively until after childbirth and operate at that time.
This book is written with the aim of addressing all these issues.
