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Showing posts from March, 2020

Understanding Congenital Heart Disease: Causes, Symptoms, and Treatments

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Congenital heart defects refer to defects in the heart that children are born with. These are one of the most common congenital defects globally. In India too, 200,000+ children are born with a congenital heart defect (CHD). These are the numbers of the cases that are recorded – there maybe many more which go undiagnosed and hence untreated. Only 25 per cent of the children diagnosed with a congenital heart defect are able to get the required treatment. A lack of awareness and access to resources are the biggest challenges in children getting timely treatment. Organisations like Genesis Foundation, a congenital heart foundation India has been taking steps to both build awareness and provide financial treatment to those who cannot afford the cost of treatment. The treatment for CHD is expensive and families that do not earn enough to meet their daily needs have to depend on funds they receive as a congenital heart disease donation to support the treatment. Symptoms of Congenital Heart

What treatments are available for Congenital Heart Disease and how we as a society can help the underprivileged to afford this treatment?

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The birth of a child often brings happiness in the lives of parents as well as his near and dear ones, but this is not true for every child. This happiness is often taken away from the parents whose children are born with some birth defects such as Congenital Heart Disease (CHD).CHD is a common type of birth defect that affects the structure of a baby’s heart and how it functions. Congenital Heart Disease may vary from mild to severe and according to Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 1 in every 4 babies born with a heart defect has a critical congenital heart defect. The kids who suffer from a critical CHD need surgery or other procedures in the first year of life.  However, one good thing related to this disease is that it can be treated, and that also in most cases for life. Sometimes the defect is diagnosed during pregnancy and it becomes easy for the doctors to treat the child. Over the past few years, the treatments and follow-up care for CHD have im