What is cyanotic heart disease?
Cyanotic heart disease refers to a defect of the heart which causes disruption of the systemic circulation of blood and has been observed to occur during the birth of a newly born infant. As a study has shown, this disease affects either the walls of the atrium or the ventricular walls. In complicated cases, the disease may cause abnormalities in connections between blood vessels and even affect the development of the nerves which is referred to as Transposition of the great arteries. This may, in turn, cause other heart defects to the baby such as Truncus Arteriosus which may reduce survival chances of the infant. Read more about disease such as cyanotic heart disease at homedoctorsbrisbane.com.au/blog/.
General Disease Features
The disease can easily be noticed as there are symptoms that show during birth. Some of these symptoms include:
- Difficulty in gaining weight in the newborn baby.
- Blue skin color or grey skin color caused by the mixing of de-oxygenated blood and oxygenated blood
- Periodical heart murmurs.
- Occasional baby fatigue at certain times of the day.
- Dyspnea and tachypnea.
- Clubbing of the nails after a few days from conception period.
- Periodical heart failure.
- Persistent crying.
The disease is known to be fatal to the child because it causes death within the first year of its onset during conception and only 1 in a 100 kids are able to survive for over a year with the disease.
Causes
There are some common causes of this disease in infants. The causes include:
- Failure of the valves (tricuspid valves, pulmonary valve, and aortic valves) to open to the required extent or may be absent in babies who have had an abnormal birth.
- Usage of drugs without a prescription during pregnancy by the expectant mother which increases the risk of the child to contract the disease.
- Down syndrome or Turner syndrome defects present in the expectant mother’s body.
- Failure of expectant mother’s homeostatic system to regulate the blood sugar levels effectively.
Treatment and Management
- Performing surgery (Hemi-Fontan Procedure) on the baby to change the direction of blood flow thus preventing mixing of deoxygenated blood and oxygenated blood.
- Giving the baby a prescribed dose of Prophylactic antibiotic to cut down the chances of endocarditis disease attacking the baby.
