It depends on age, maturity of newborn, weight of baby and the size of PDA.
Preterm Babies:
- Preterm babies especially less than 1500 grams (1.5 Kg) can present as signs of heart failure, multiple episodes of apnea, dependency on oxygen/ventilator etc.
- Large PDA can lead to heart failure, decrease in blood pressure (diastolic blood pressure) that can leads to poor blood perfusion in various organs of the body.
- Large PDA babies are prone for the development of pulmonary vascular disease which is irreversible to treat PDA.
- Hypoperfusion may lead to renal impairment, necrotizing enterocolitis, feeding intolerance, and hemorrhage in brain.
Term Babies:
- Newborns that are mature and having good weight at birth are generally not having any symptoms due to PDA itself.
- In small sized PDA, child is generally asymptomatic and comes to know by a pediatrician by hearing an abnormal heart sound (murmur) on routine examination.
- Moderate to large sized PDA are generally asymptomatic in first few days of life.
- Around 1-2 months of age, child can present as feeding difficulty, sweating over forehead, suck-rest-suck cycle on feeding, poor weight gain etc. Sometimes, child if not treated, can have signs of pneumonia including hospital admission and occasional requirement of ventilator.
Dr Gaurav Agrawal is a Pediatric Cardiologist (Child and Fetal heart Specialist). Dr Agrawal is a pediatrician who has specialized training in the treatment of various child heart related problems (neonates to 18 years of age). He is also having a vast experience in fetal echocardiography.
He is one of the very few pediatricians in India who practices pediatric cardiology exclusively. Cardiac problems in children are common in children, sometimes life threating and often not diagnosed properly. Early diagnosis and timely treatment is very important. Areas of specific interest include child echocardiography including fetal echocardiography, diagnostic and therapeutic cardiac catheterization (pediatric cardiac holes closure by device, opening of obstructed cardiac valves by balloons etc).