Explain Congenital Heart Disease (CHD)?
Congenital heart disease is an abnormality at birth in cardiac circulatory structure or function. Optimal management of CHD aims not merely at survival, but at optimizing growth and development. The relationship between CHD, malnutrition and growth is well documented. Different types of cardiac defects are associated with different patterns of growth retardation. Here we are not going into the details related to these cardiac defects. What we must, however, know, is that, patients with acyanotic heart disease show greater growth deficit in weight. Cyanotic heart disease patients have greater growth deficit in stature - demonstrated by both decreased height and weight. Those infants born with CHD also show a greater incidence (6-14%) of intra uterine growth retardation (IUGR), viral illness and chromosomal abnormality.