Hole in the Heart: Quick Recap for Parents
By Justin
Every year 8-12 children per 1000 live deliveries are born with heart defects. These are also called Congenital Heart Defect (CHD) which simply means that the heart developed problems since when it was being formed inside the womb. The commonest problems are holes in the heart. Although sound innocuous, this short phrase in my experience created a lot of apprehension and fear among the family and also health care providers. This article is our attempt to put the facts straight.
The Normal Heart:
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The heart is a pumping organ and has got four chambers. The two upper chambers are called the Right Atrium and Left Atrium (RA and LA) and the two lower chambers are called the Right Ventricle and Left Ventricle (RV and LV). The upper chambers are separated by a wall called inter-atrial septum and the lower chambers are separated by another wall called inter-ventricular septum. From the RV, one artery or pipe takes impure /deoxygenated blood to lungs for oxygenation. This is called the Pulmonary Artery (PA) and from the LV another artery called Aorta carries pure/oxygen-rich blood to the whole body.
Continue to common holes in the heart –>
How to recognize that a child has hole in the heart?
What to do if your child has a hole in the heart?
