CHD Awareness Week

It is CHD Awareness Week!  I thought I would give you a few CHD facts I got from a friend, Jamie Snyder, who also happens to run our heart group, High Plains Mended Little Hearts, here in Amarillo...

CHD Fact 1. Congenital Heart Defects (CHD) are problems with the heart's structure that are present at birth

CHD Fact 2. Common examples include holes in the inside walls of the heart and narrowed or leaky valves. In more sever forms of CHDs, blood vessels or heart chambers may be missing, poorly formed, and/or in the wrong place

CHD Fact 3. CHDs are the most common birth defects.  CHDs occur in almost 1% of births, or approximately 1 in 125 births

CHD Fact 4. CHDs are the most common cause of infant death due to birth defects.  An approximate 100-200 deaths are due to unrecognized heart disease in newborns each year.  These numbers exclude those dying before diagnosis.

CHD Fact 5. Nearly 40,000 infants in the U.S. are born each year with CHDs

CHD Fact 6. CHDs are as common as autism and about twenty-five times more common than cystic fibrosis

CHD Fact 7. Approximately two to three million individuals are thought to be living in the US with CHDs.  Because there is no US system to track CHDs beyond early childhood, more precise estimates are not available.

CHD Fact 8. Thanks to improvements in survival, the number of adults living with CHDs is increasing.  It is now believed that the number of adults living with CHDs is at least equal to, if not greater than, the number of children living with CHDs.

I bet you know someone with a CHD even if you do not realize it.  Natalie and I were asked to model as survivors this coming Tuesday in the Go Red Luncheon here in Amarillo.  Larry's administrative assistance was the one who asked us, because she is a model too.  What? I had no idea she was a CHD survivor; small world.  She had an ASD and was able to have it repaired through a heart cath when she was young.  

By telling you this, I am sure there are adults our there, that have a CHD that you never knew about it.    

Did you also know that, Shaun White, the pro snowboarder, has a CHD. He had two open heart surgeries  before the age of one.   Matt Hammitt from Sanctus Real's son has HLHS and if you ever watch Scandal, the DA, Joshua Malina's son has a CHD as well.  

People, CHD is the number one birth defect! Join me this week and spreading the CHD facts and lets make people aware.  Moms, request a pulse ox on your child before leaving the hospital.  It is non-invasive, basically the put something on the baby's toe and/or finger to check the O2 levels.