Your Child’s Heart
Get the basics on everything from keeping your child’s heart healthy to some of the heart problems that can affect kids. To start, it helps to learn how the heart works.
What Can Go Wrong?
Sometimes, there’s a problem with how a heart formed. This is called a heart defect. Mild defects might not need treatment. Otherwise, most heart defects are treated during infancy.
Children’s Heart Problems
Here’s what to know about three common heart problems so that you can plan for next steps.
Arrhythmias
An arrhythmia is when the heart beats too slowly, too quickly, or irregularly. Some need medical care.
How Doctors Check the Heart
Doctors use different tests for different heart conditions.
Heart Surgeries and Procedures
A few kids will need surgery. Many kids get simple procedures, but a few infants born with serious heart defects might need more complex surgery.
Heart Health
What’s a great way to keep your child’s heart healthy? Encourage healthy eating and exercise!
Cholesterol
High cholesterol is a risk factor for heart disease, which has its roots in childhood.
Fats
Though too much fat can be unhealthy, some kinds of fat are good for us and are an important part of a healthy diet.
Your Child’s Weight
“What’s the right weight for my child?” is one of the most common questions parents have. It seems like a simple one, but it’s not always easy to answer.
Cardiac FAQs
Having a heart murmur means that the blood makes an extra noise as it flows through the heart. Most murmurs are normal. Sometimes a murmur happens because of a problem in the heart.
Cardiomyopathy is when the heart muscle gets too thick, too thin, or too stiff. This makes it hard to pump blood through the body.
If you need to take your child’s pulse, there are different ways to do it depending on your child’s age.
