Congenital Heart Disease

Any heart diseases which are present from birth are termed as congenital heart disease. Not all congenital heart disease causes problem, but most of them might prove fatal or hinder the proper growth of the child, some disease produces symptoms after a few years. With the application of prenatal scan it is becoming possible to detect the congenital heart disease even before the baby is born.
Common congenital heart diseases include patent ductus arteriosus, aortic stenosis, pulmonary value stenosis, atrial septal defect and ventricular septal defect.
Causes:
The most important cause is genetic. Faulty genes might be passed to babies either from their mother or father, so a careful family history will yield valuable information.
Some conditions like diabetes, hypertension, and epilepsy are linked to congenital diseases in the child.
Illegal drugs, smoking, alcohol and certain infections might also be causes for the diseases in the baby.
Symptoms:
The children who suffer from congenital heart disease usually will have bluish discoloration of the mucus membranes; this is more prominent around fingernails, under the mouth and lips. The breathing rate is increased, resulting in increased metabolic action thus resulting in easy fatigability of the child; the baby might get tired easily even when it is doing simple actions like breast feeding thus failing to thrive.
One of the classical telltale sign of the congenital heart disease is that children become breathless on lying down and then sits up in squatting position to breathe properly. The children might also suffer from blackouts due to reduced oxygen supply.
Signs:
Upon examination, the most important signs include underweight babies, peripheral cyanosis, dyspnoea and heart murmurs which are produced due to turbulence in the flow of the blood.
Diagnosis:
Diagnosis of the heart disease is an important step in order to prevent or institute any treatment to the child. The routine investigations by which a congenital disease is detected are:
Prenatal scans done around 18 weeks of pregnancy.
Physical examination of the child.
Cardiac investigations like ECG: This records the rhythm of the heart; it is a painless non invasive investigation.
A 2D echocardiogram: This is the gold standard test, by which any abnormality in the structure of the heart is detected. All septal wall disease is identified by echo. It is non invasive disease where a probe emitting ultrasound is placed on chest.
Chest X- Ray: Here the size of the heart can be seen.
MRI scan: A detailed picture of entire cardiac and pulmonary system can be obtained.
Cardiac catheterisation: A hallow tube is inserted through femoral artery and the entire heart is seen.
Treatment:
Most of the disease requires surgical corrections; this is very necessary as many of the kids recover and develop as normal children.
With recent advances there is minimal invasive surgery which makes the procedure less complicated and well tolerated amongst children. Most of the techniques involve closing the hole in the walls of the heart, or replacing a damaged valve.