Successful Intra-Arterial Thrombolysis for Acute Ischemic Stroke in the Immediate Postpartum Period: Case Report

Stroke in pregnancy and the puerperium is a rare but potentially devastating event. We present the case of a previously healthy woman who underwent a cesarean delivery and experienced a middle cerebral artery thrombosis in the immediate postpartum period that was subsequently lysed with intra-arterial urokinase. The patient made a complete neurologic recovery. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first reported case of successful intra-arterial thrombolysis for ischemic stroke in the postpartum period.