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Matters of the Heart: Cardiovascular Health in Women Throughout Their Lifetimes. The authors' goal is to review the current recommendations for optimizing cardiovascular health beginning in adolescent years to adulthood, and to expand on the role that pregnancy complications may have as implications for future cardiovascular health. Attention to cardiac health begins in adolescence; however, most young patients are not screened. Pregnancy, with its increased cardiovascular demands and host of antepartum cardiopulmonary complications, may provide a window into future cardiac health. The distinct shift in cardiac risk that occurs once a woman enters menopause is largely ignored in routine screening guidelines.