Congenital Heart Defect

Congenital heart defect or CHD, also known as a congenital heart anomaly or congenital heart disease, is a complication in the heart’s structure at the time of birth. Symptoms may include rapid breathing, bluish skin, poor weight gain, and fatigue. It does not cause chest pain. Generally congenital heart problems do not occur with various other diseases. Heart failure is one of the complications that can result from heart defects.

The cause of a congenital heart disease is unknown in some cases. Certain cases may be due to infections during pregnancy such as rubella, use of certain medications and drugs such as tobacco or alcohol, or poor nutritional status or paunchiness in the mother. Having a parent with a congenital heart problem is also a risk factor. The number of genetic conditions is associated with heart defects include Down syndrome, Turner Syndrome and Marfan syndrome.

Congenital heart defects are divided into two main groups:
Non-Cyanotic heart defects and Cyanotic heart defects, depending on whether the child has the potential to turn bluish in colour. The problems may involve the interior walls of the heart, the heart valves, or the large blood vessels that lead to and from the heart.
According to CHPHC research approximately 25% of children born with a CHD and require the need of heart surgery or other interventions to survive.

Success rate

The Congenital heart defects surgeries are more than 97% successful

Care after the procedure
Not all people with congenital heart defects require treatment. Some may only need to be scrutinized and visit their cardiologist. In other cases, surgery or a cardiac catheterization may be needed to reduce the effects of or reconstruct the defect. Even when a defect is treated as a child, further conditions may develop that would profit from additional medical treatment.