Children's Healthcare Foundation

Congenital Heart Defect (CHDs) are structural abnormalities of the heart present at the time of birth of a child.   CHDs are the most common cause of death due to congenital anomalies in the developed world. Although CHD include a wide spectrum of conditions, they can broadly be classified into critical CHD and non-critical CHD. Critical CHDs are those defects where failure to identify the condition within the first month after birth could potentially result in death or a significant disability. The critical CHDs include Pulmonary atresia, Severe Pulmonary stenosis or atresia, Hypoplastic left heart syndrome, Aortic stenosis, Transposition of Great arteries, Obstructed total anomalous pulmonary venous drainage and Severe coarctation. Timely diagnosis is critical to the effective treatment forcongenital heart defects . However, the clinical recognition of CHD in the newborn period is often challenging. This is because the symptom...