My pregnant cat has difficulty breathing; will giving birth be risky for her?

Question

I take care of a stray female cat that is 10 moths old and pregnant. A couple of months ago, she used to have some problems with breathing such as noisy breathing and some nasal discharges (note that she’s also feral so taking her to a vet was a risky), so when I found her active and with well appetite I just waited to see what will happen, and indeed later on all the symptoms disappeared. However, now the noisy breathing is back (without the nasal discharge) and I’m worried that giving birth will be difficult and risky for her, so I would like to hear your thoughts about that.

Note: the temperature is so high where I live, like 44 °C in daytime, and I try my best to provide her fresh cool water and dry food, but I was wondering: could it be the hotness of weather that brought her breathing problem back?

Answer 1

The heat stress may indeed be worsening any heart-lung issues. If air conditioning (or a swamp cooler) is available, that might help.

Pregnancy in general is hard on the body and the birth process interferes somewhat with breathing. It can definitely worsen any congestive heart/lung issues: see, e.g., Pregnancy-associated congestive heart failure in a cat. It's not clear whether your kitty's breathing issues stem from anything in the heart, though; if it's "just" bacterial pneumonia, the proper antibiotic would help enormously. So it's a good idea to bring her to a vet.

If you have access to a vet, they probably have the ability to segregate the pregnant kitty and care for her during birth, too.

Spaying during pregnancy is possible but difficult (and generally expensive, and I would try to avoid that).

See also bgse's comment about TNR.