Some babies and children with defects of the heart do not present symptoms. Many present an abnormal sound in the sounding, named normal also blow. Eye: The children with hearts can these are named blows to have blows of the heart; "innocent" or "functional".

Certain defects of the heart prevent the heart from pumping the blood adapted to the lungs or to other parts of the body, what can cause heart failure. The affected child will feel palpitations and difficulty to breathe, especially during the exercise (or in the nursing ones, during the feeding, therefore they cannot eat and do not increase of weight). Also there can happen distension (edema) of the legs or of the abdomen, or about the eyes.

In most cases, the scientists do not know what is what does that the heart of a baby develops abnormally. They seem to redeem a function so much genetic factors as environmental.

Between few environmental factors that are known, there is a virus and certain medicines. The women who contracted the German measles during the first three months of the pregnancy it has a high risk of having a baby with a defect of the heart.

Certain medicines also increase the risk. These include the medication for the acne Roacután, the lithium (used to treat certain mental illnesses) and, possibly, some medicines against the convulsive crises. The alcohol during the pregnancy also can increase the risk of the defects of the heart, as well as the use of cocaine.

Certain chronic illnesses in the mother also can increase the risk of the defects of the heart. For example, the diabetes or the call fenilcetonuria.

The genetic factors redeem also a function. Although most of the families have not more than one child with cardiopatía congenital, these malformations have major probability of happening in the brothers or in the progeny of the persons who have defects of the heart than in not affected families. On the other hand, the defects of the heart also can be part of a set of congenital defects. For example, more than one third part of the children with the Down syndrome has cardiopatía congenital.

The perspectives have never been more brilliant for the babies and the children with congenital defects of the heart. Today, most of them can be corrected, at least partly, by the surgery, the medicine or the devices like the artificial valves and the pacemaker.

Even very recently, often it was necessary to do temporary repairs and to postpone the corrective surgery even later in the childhood. Nowadays, half of the children who need surgical repair is submitted to surgery before the age of 2 years. Here there are some of the most common defects and his treatments:

Clear arterial conduit [Patent ductus arteriosus]: While the fetus is in the counterfoil, big part of his blood happens for a passage (ductus arteriosus) from a blood glass to other instead of to the lungs, because the lungs are not in use yet. The passage (ductus) must close shortly after the birth, so that the blood could take the normal route of the heart to the lungs. If it does not close, the blood does not flow correctly. This problem happens with major frequency in premature babies. In a pricipio the persistent ductus tries to close with medicines, and if not, by means of surgery.

Defects septales: If the defect is an orifice in the wall (septo) that divides two top cameras or two low ones, the blood cannot circulate like debit and the heart has to work too hard. The surgery consists of closing the orifice, it be sewing or with a patch. The small orifices can recover themselves or not need repair by no means.

Aorta limitation: The big artery aorta, which sends blood of the heart to the rest of the body, can be taken in of birth, preventing the normal blood flow. The surgery consists of cutting the narrow part and sewing the together split ends, or replacing the section cut with synthetic material or with part of a taken blood glass of another place in the body. Sometimes this narrow area can expand by means of inflated of a balloon in the top of a catheter inserted in the artery.

Abnormalities of the valves of the heart: Some babies are born with closed or blocked valves of the heart, preventing the normal flow of the blood. The surgery can repair the valves or replace them by the artificial one. The catheters with balloons can be useful here also, making the surgery unnecessary.

Tetralogía of Fallot: It is a combination of four defects of the heart, which prevents the blood from coming to the lungs to become oxygenated, and the baby becomes blue and sickly. The new surgical skills allow the early repair of this complex defect of the heart, so that most of the affected children live through normal or almost normal lives.

Transposition of the big arteries: Here, transponen two principal arteries that go out of the heart (aorta and pulmonary), so that each of them arises from the opposite pumping camera. The recent surgical advances have given place to the correction of this defect, till not long ago lethal at the beginning of the period neonatal [newborn baby].

The fetus inside the counterfoil can be observed by means of sonorous waves, the called ultrasound scan, one of of whose special forms, the ecocardiografía, can detect with accuracy many defects of the heart. If the defect of the heart cannot talk each other before the birth, know that it exists allows to the doctors him to be prepared to administer to the baby the necessary treatment as soon as he is born.

Most of the congenital defects of the heart cannot get ready yet. Nevertheless, there are some steps that can reduce the risk of having a baby with a defect of the heart.

Every woman in fertile age must be sure, before no pregnancy, of which it is immune to the German measles, and be vaccinated if it is not immune. Every pregnant woman must avoid the alcohol and the drugs. The women with chronic illnesses as the diabetes, epilepsy or fenilcetonuria they must consult his doctors before trying the conception, so that his medicines and/or diets could fit to improve the perspectives for the baby.

The parents who have had an affected child have more probabilities that others of having the second son with the same defect of the heart, but the probabilities are generally very small. Also, the carrying parents they of a congenital cardiopatía also are themselves in major risk of having a child with a defect of the heart.