Congenital heart disease: Disease of the innocent

HEART OF THE MATTER: In CHD the blood vessels near the heart do not develop normally before birth.

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New Delhi: The Mehta couple is fighting for the right to terminate a pregnancy because the foetus is likely to be born with a congenital heart defect.

About 1 in 100 babies are born with heart defects. Heart disease is enough to scare many of us but imagine being born with a heart condition.

In congenital heart defect, the blood vessels near the heart do not develop normally before birth. They either block the blood flow to the heart or cause it to flow through the heart in an irregular pattern.

Doctor Vikas Kohli says that it happen in one out of 100 children and this is one of the commonest causes of death in the first year of life. In India there are 1 lakh 50 to 60 thousand kids being born with heart defects per year.

However, the good news is that if the babies are diagnosed and treated in time ideally within the first year, they can be completely cured and grow up to enjoy a healthy life.

Kohli advises parents to be aware of the signs and symptoms such as the baby not feeding well, the baby is getting tired or sweating while feeding.

The other group do not have these signs. The baby continues to grow well but begins to to turn blue in the nails and lips.

Usually there are no symptoms at all as was in the case of a 7-year-old Kajal. In her case, the doctor picked up a heart murmur with a stethoscope during a routine checkup and detected the defect.

An echocardiogram or ECG is done to help diagnose the defect which sometimes requires an open heart surgery.

The most common congenital heart defect doctors find are holes in the heart. However with sophisticated medical techniques, this no longer requires open heart surgeries.

In a technique known as device closure, a metal device, nickel titanium alloy called nitinol, is inserted to close the hole. This device is costs somewhere around Rs 1 lakh.

The defects can be caused by viral infections such as rubella in spite of the mothers being on prescription medicines.

What is scary is that 99 per cent of the time, there is no known cause.