"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
--Jeremiah 29:11

Friday, November 9, 2007

Article on Congenital Heart Defects

This link is to an article about a recent study done on the brains of babies with CHD's. I saw something about it on the news yesterday so I looked it up to get more info.
Article, Titled: Brains of term infants with heart disease resemble those of preemies

I'm not for sure, but I don't think that Conway's specific heart defect puts him at risk for the type of in utero brain damage they are talking about because he was not cyanotic at birth and never had or has low oxygen saturations. The babies in these studies had transposition of the great arteries (NOT Congenitally Corrected Transposition, like him) or Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. Both conditions usually run kids in the low 80's for oxygen sats and his have always been in the high 90's (100 is best). Anyway, I thought it was still quite interesting and I was excited to see something in the news about CHD's. Anything that brings this issue to the forefront is worth passing on, I think. No offense, but I'm sick of seeing all coverage that autism is getting when it affects a reported 1 in 150-166 children and no one ever talks about congenital heart defects and 1 in 100 births has one and many don't make it to one year of age. Why the American Heart Association spends less than 1% of its donations researching or promoting awareness about CHD's is beyond me. Okay, I'm done with my soapbox for tonight. Thanks for reading!

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