Intracranial arteriovenous malformations in pregnant women

: Three women, aged 27, 32 and 30 years, respectively, suffered from headache, nausea and neurological abnormalities and were found to have an intracranial arteriovenous malformation (AVM). One of them after diagnosis had two pregnancies, both ended by caesarean section with good results. Another woman was 32 weeks pregnant when the AVM manifested itself with a haemorrhage; she recovered well and was delivered by caesarean section. After the AVM proved radiologically to have been obliterated, she delivered after her subsequent pregnancy by the vaginal route with vacuum extraction. The third woman was 15 weeks pregnant when major abnormalities developed. There was a large intracerebral haematoma with break-through to the ventricular system; this patient died. Intracranial haemorrhage during pregnancy is rate. It can result in maternal and foetal morbidity and mortality. It appears that pregnancy does not increase the rate of first cerebral haemorrhage from an AVM. The management of AVM rupture during pregnancy should be based primarily on neurosurgical rather than on obstetric considerations. Close collaboration with a team of neurologists, neurosurgeons, obstetricians and anaesthesiologists is mandatory.