Hi, gang,

On Wed, 23 Oct 1996 21:57:48 +1000, Narelle Clark wrote:
>I am now 38.5 weeks pregnant and the SVT I periodically get has
>been rather exacerbated by pregnancy. So much so that last Sat
>night was spent in hospital and after 3.5 hours of SVT required
>verapamil to revert (this is the first time). I would love to
>know of anyone who has seen this in labour (since my homebirth
>is out of the question - sniff - now), but more to the point
>how common is a reaction to it in the neonate that is
>exclusively breastfed? Ie if I have to have it in labour, or
>in the few days pp, how will baby fare?

I searched supraventricular-tachycardia and pregnancy on medline and
came up with 150 abstracts.  I didn't have time to read them all, but
several cited potential side effects of verapamil due to placental transfer,
including bradycardia, heart block, depression of contractility and
hypotension.  Many of the abstracts used other drugs, primarily adenosine,
due to it's low placental transfer, but also digoxin and metoprolol.

Jonathan
************************************************
*           L. Jonathan Kramer, P.E.           *
*    Graduate Breastfeeding Counselor and      *
*        Student Lactation Consultant          *
*      Certified Medela Nursing Bra Fitter     *
* Only G-d knows the formula for mother's milk *
************************************************