Bradycardia in newborn and link with maternal Lupus

[Zhlake]

I was talking with a nurse on the OB floor the other day and she was telling me a story about a baby who had been in special care for bradycardia. She just kind of mentioned that when some babies are bradycardic, they check mom for RA factors and that sort of thing. They found out mom had lupus. She was telling me a rather long story and this was just sort of in passing. I didn't have a chance to ask her to expand on this.

I had never heard of this, but it reminded me of my brother. His heart rate was 70's or so after birth so he was evaluated by a cariologist when he was a few weeks old. Nothing ever came of it, but mom found out she had RA 2 years later. I told her this story I had heard and she had never heard of that link either and she was intrigued. She was a labor nurse and then worked in an OB/GYN office so I was surprised that she didn't know about this. I called my sister who works in a large metro hospital in OB and she hadn't heard of this either. She thought maybe this link was more related to older babies (>3 weeks old or so) and maybe that was why none of us was familiar.

Anyone else heard of a link between baby's bradycardia and RA/lupus type syndromes?

[EricJRN, MSN, RN]

IIRC, the cardiac rhythm most closely associated with maternal SLE would be third-degree AV block, which can certainly cause bradycardia.