1. What leads to birth defects of the heart?

        Birth defects of the heart occur in approximately 8 out of 1000 live births i.e. roughly 1% of all babies born alive. It is one of the most common birth defects.

So, what leads to heart defects like holes in the heart or valve blocks in babies?

Unfortunately there is no single answer to this question. The majority of times there is no explanation as to why a patient has developed a certain heart defect. If you take patients with heart defects roughly 10% have some identifiable genetic problem. Of course there are still thousands of genetic problems that we are yet to discover. If a baby has a genetic problem (e.g. Downs Syndrome) there is roughly a 30% chance that the baby will have a heart defect. This defect may be minor requiring no treatment or major requiring some form of surgery or key hole treatment.

What about the mother’s health? Does this play a part in giving rise to heart defects?

          

       I commonly come across parents who feel guilty and responsible for their baby being born with a heart problem. It is important to understand that the majority of heart defects have no known cause and are not due to anything that might have occurred during pregnancy. The heart structure is formed very early on in pregnancy (8-10 weeks), sometimes even before the lady realizes that she is pregnant. Any abnormality of the heart is ‘programmed’ into the cells even beforehand. So, eating certain foods or undertaking certain activities does not give rise to heart defects.