Editorial

Pregnancy is a physiological state that allows character-ization of cardiac morphological and physiological adap-tation of the human heart to chronic increase in preload and afterload. In addition, this characterization allows clinicians to detect pathological cardiac disease during early stages. Prior echocardiographic studies have described an increase in cardiac dimensions and changes in systolic and diastolic function during normal human pregnancy; however, the studies have been limited by cross-sectional design.1 It is important to develop uniformity in echocardiographic meth-odology, gestational age, and equipment and data collection when evaluating serial changes in pregnancy. Owing to the strong influence of age, ethnicity, and height on cardiac output and echo Doppler parameters, including tissue Dopp-ler velocities, it is important to study serial changes in these parameters in the same cohort at each trimester of pregnanc