Congenital heart disease can refer to a number of different problems affecting the heart, including Hypoplastic Heart. According to the American Heart Association, around 35,000 babies are born each year with some type of congenital heart defect.

Congenital heart disease is responsible for more deaths in the first year of life than any other birth defects. Many of these defects need to be followed carefully, and while some heal over time, others will require treatment.

Congenital heart disease can be divided into two types: cyanotic (meaning a blue discoloration caused by a relative lack of oxygen) and non-cyanotic. Hypoplastic right heart and hypoplastic left heart are both of the cyanotic type.

Birth defects affecting the heart muscle are a challenge to expectant parents, since the severity, the manifestation, and also prognosis usually is not known until the child is born.

Similarly, some heart related birth defects are hereditary while others are linked to other birth defects and may actually only be secondary in nature to the first, and more serious, birth defects. In the majority of the cases, however, it appears that heart defects are directly due to a preventable event, such as the use of Accutane or alcohol consumption of the mother.

To further understand the possible birth defects affecting the heart muscle, here is a brief synopsis of the most commonly presented ones:

Pregnancy is a time filled with wonder, awe, many worries, and almost countless doctors’ visits. In the course of an uneventful pregnancy, you most likely will only see your doctor once a month; yet if you are in a high risk group or if there are problems detected in the course of the pregnancy, you will find that you might be visiting your physician every two to three weeks. Depending on the nature of the problems anticipated or predicted, your doctor may counsel you to have a number of tests done to determine with close certainty what – if any – problems there may be found with your unborn child.

Presents Risks

If you have ever gone through a high school biology course, you were sooner or later treated to the story of Gregor Mendel and his pea plants. Once upon a time, circa mid 1800’s, an Augustinian monk named Father Mendel lived in what is now the Czech Republic. In his spare time he enjoyed a bit of gardening. He liked to grow pea plants and good-naturedly wait for them to crossbreed in specific combinations.

How often have you picked up a beauty product or a chemical and glanced at the warning on the back? Have you noticed how many warn against the use of the product if you are pregnant? Perhaps you have become numb to this warning – after all, it appears as thought it is printed on pretty much everything and anything that helps you to clean your house, do away with pimples, fuel your car, and make your lawn nice and green. Yet disregarding or downplaying the warnings may have fatal consequences to your unborn child.

These warnings printed on the labels of a host of substances point to the presence of teratogens, which are little more than substances or combinations thereof that have been connected with having an immediate and usually irreversible effect on developing human life.

Absorption in your Body