Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week

Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week, February 7th-14th

What is Congenital Heart Defect? A CHD means a child is born with an abnormally structured heart and/or large vessels. Such hearts may have incomplete or missing parts, may be put together the wrong way, may have holes between chamber partitions or may have narrow or leaky valves or narrow vessels.

Did you also know?

• Up to 1.3 million Americans alive today have congenital heart defects; one half of these are under the age of 25.
• Approximately 9 out of 1,000 infants are born with CHD each year - 36,000 babies per year in the US alone!
• CHD is the most frequently occurring birth defect and is a leading cause of birth-defect related deaths worldwide.
• Some CHDs may not require treatment, other than periodic visits to a Pediatric Cardiologist. Others can be treated with medications or repaired with surgery and/or procedures. Complex defects may require several surgeries and are never really cured.
• Although some babies will be diagnosed at birth, sometimes the diagnosis is not made until days, weeks, months or even years after. In some cases, CHDs are not detected until adolescence or adulthood
• Of every dollar the government spends on medical funding, only a fraction of a penny is directed toward congenital heart defect research

CHD has become a part of our life whether we wanted it or not. Natalie has a congenital heart defect that will effect her the rest of her life. She has already had three major open heart surgeries and still has at least one more in her future.

I will have posts throughout the week on Foundations that support the families with CHD and/or are committed to CHD research funding.

Finally, I would like to start the week off with asking everyone to say a special prayer for the children and families where CHD is a part of their daily lives and to prayer for the families who have lost a loved one to CHD.