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What are heart conditions?

• Children have very different kinds of heart disease than adults. Here is an overview of the categories of heart defects that children have.

  • Congenital heart defects. These are structural heart defects that children are born with. They can be very serious and need surgery immediately, or they can be less serious and just need to be watched over time.

  • Rhythm problems . The heart can beat too fast, too slow, or too irregularly. This can be an isolated problem or it can be related to other heart disease.

  • Carditis. This is a general term for inflammation of the heart. Children can get carditis from viral infections or other diseases such as Kawasaki disease. It can also be called myocarditis.

  • Cardiomyopathy. This is a term for an abnormal heart muscle. It can be caused by a viral infection or chemical, or it can happen for unknown reasons. Because it can be caused by many different things, it can often be hard to predict how serious it will be or how long it will last. Children may fall anywhere on the spectrum of recovering completely or needing a heart transplant.

  • Valvular heart disease. The heart has valves that allow the blood to pass from one area to another. If those valves leak or cause blockage, it can cause heart problems.

• Other important terms

  • Heart murmur. A heart murmur is just a sound that the blood makes as it goes through the heart. Often this causes no problems at all. Just like snoring is caused by air going through narrow passages, the blood can be noisy as it travels but pass through without harm. These are called innocent or benign murmurs. Sometimes a heart murmur is a clue that there is a more serious heart problem.

  • Cyanosis. This refers to a blue color of the skin that comes when the blood does not have enough oxygen.

  • Heart failure. When the heart fails, it means that it cannot keep up with the workload and it falls behind. It doesn’t mean that the heart stops; it just means that it can’t pump blood as fast as it needs to.

• For this book, we are going to break heart conditions into 2 groups.

  • Functional heart conditions—problems with the functioning of the heart because of infection or other medical issues that develop after birth

  • Structural heart defects—problems with the structure of the heart that are usually present at birth

• Children with congenital heart defects can have functional heart conditions caused by the original heart problem, the results of the surgical repair, or their medications.

• Children with congenital heart defects are more likely to enter child care or school with the diagnosis. Functional heart conditions can be present before the child enrolls or can develop while the child is attending the program.

• Sometimes, children with heart problems have other conditions, such as Down, Marfan, or Noonan syndromes. Those other conditions can cause challenges other than the heart problem.