What Do They Mean By Congenital Heart Diseases in Children

A congenital heart disease, in children or adults, is a way to say that there is a defect in your heart and that you were born with the problem. Most of the times, it is a hole or a leak or some other structural malformation.

Pediatric congenital heart diseases mostly fall on the wrong side of the severity scale. However, most of the CHD diseases can be dealt with via surgery.

Why Does A Baby Fall Prey to Congenital Heart Diseases?

Well, the exact reason is not always crystal clear. While CHD is the most common kind of congenital anomaly, it is also an umbrella term for various problems that can affect a heart.

Your congenital heart condition can be genetic, a chromosomal syndrome passed on to you or developed while you were gaining life formation. It could be because the mother was exposed to medication abuse at a point during the nine months. It could be because of a virus, if, say something like Rubella, infected the first trimester of pregnancy.

Often comes a case where the cause seems unattainable. Ongoing investigations and researches try to pull all sheets off the event of congenital heart diseases, but an ultimate list of reasons is a sight yet to be witnessed.

Are There Any Signs of Heart Problems in Children?

With a congenital heart condition, the symptoms might or might not show up. If they do, the following might be included in them.

• Short, quick breaths.
• Cyanosis, or what you can identify as the presence of a bluish tint in your skin, lips and nails.
• The poor feeding pattern in infants and babies.
• Poor weight gain patterns.
• Lung infections.

Types of Congenital Heart Defects

When we talk about malformation of the heart, the structural trouble could be in the valves, the walls, the muscles, or the blood vessels that are related to the organ.

A bad valve might not allow the blood to go through or might just cause backwards flow. A hole somewhere along the walls that segregate the left section of the heart from the right part or a non-efficiently pumping muscle can cause heart failure.

The classification has also been based on cyanosis, i.e. Cyanotic and Acyanotic heart diseases. In a cyanotic structural issue, the deoxygenated blood slips into the system, bypassing the lungs. In an acyanotic condition, blood flow starts from the left part of the heart to the right.

How Does the Treatment Work?

Not every case of congenital heart disease in children needs treatment. For instance, small holes can fill up on their own with time. Mild defects can improve and not cause serious trouble.

Surgery, special procedures, and medications become a necessity when the heart condition starts trying to get its presence noticed. Either way, a regular heart specialist should be high up on your speed dial list.

You Can Do Your Bit Too

You might want to start carrying a card with all your congenital disease-related information on it. Any infection has to be reported to your doctor. You will need to check in with your doctor regarding antibiotics doses before any medical work that requires blood work.

The heart is an intricately functioning organ, you see. Something as seemingly ordinary as a bad connection between the tiniest blood vessels can screw up the whole system. While it is possible to defeat the Congenital heart disease in children, in you or your kid, you will have to be extra-careful on a regular basis.