Congenital heart diseases are the heart diseases that are present at birth.
These can be in the form of holes in the heart, abnormalities in great vessels, abnormal vessel connections, coronaries anomalies, vessel obstruction, valve anomalies etc.
Types of CHDs:
Congenital heart diseases are: VSD (ventricular septal defect), ASD (atrial septal defect), PDA (patent ductus arteriosus), AV canal defect; TOF (Tetralogy of Fallot), TAPVC, Truncus arteriosus, VSD with pulmonary atresia, Ebstein’s anomaly etc.
Coronary arteries may also have congenital issues like abnormal origins that can leads to heart failure.
Other form of CHD’s is narrowing in cardiac valves like aortic or pulmonary valves (aortic or pulmonary stenosis) or narrowing in aorta (coarctation of aorta) or in pulmonary artery (PA).
Presentation:
Can present in different ways, e.g babies are blue since birth, shock like state.
In infancy, as shortness of breath, increase sweating, difficulty in feeding, swelling on the body, blueness of fingers & lips.
Older children presents as easy fatigability (tiredness), unconsciousness, chest pain, and abnormal heart beat.
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).