Title: Screening Newborns for Critical Congenital Heart Disease
Headings: Screening Newborns for Critical Congenital Heart Disease
Screening Newborns for Critical Congenital Heart Disease
Content: It is not intended to replace taking a complete family health and pregnancy history, and completing a physical examination of the newborn, which sometimes can detect CCHDs before the development of hypoxemia or can detect children whose CCHDs are missed by pulse oximetry. Realize that pulse oximetry screening does not detect all CCHDs, even all of the 7 main screening targets. A "passed" screen does not rule out the possibility of a CCHD or other heart defect in your patient. For every 3 children detected with a CCHD by screening, 1 child with a CCHD will still be missed. Continued vigilance is necessary to recognize congenital heart defects if signs or symptoms, such as tachypnea, cyanosis, weak pulses, failure to thrive, extreme sleepiness, or a heart murmur, occur. Thank you for taking the time to learn more about screening for CCHDs. Please visit http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/pediatricgenetics/pulse.html for more information on this topic. Web Resources
Algorithm for CCHD screening from Children's Healthcare of Atlanta
CDC: Screening for Critical Congenital Heart Defects -- Information for Providers
CDC: Screening for Critical Congenital Heart Defects -- Information for Parents
Dr. Matt Oster is a pediatric cardiologist at Sibley Heart Center Cardiology in the Division of Pediatric Cardiology at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.