October 13th, 2017

Up to 50% of babies born with Down syndrome also have heart conditions. When Emma was born we were told she didn’t have any heart issues, but headed off to the cardiologist at 6 months for a checkup anyway. The doctor told us that she still had a hole in her heart, but that it wasn’t huge and was nothing to worry about....Ummm.... we weren’t aware that she had a hole to begin with and I was very unsure about the whole thing!!
He went back over all of her notes and scans and left the room for about 10 minutes to consult with a colleague. It turns out that Emma does have a small hole, one that will likely close on its own, and doesn’t require surgery. Phew!
It does mean that she can’t go scuba diving or sky diving because in those two conditions with added pressure the hole may cause a problem. I’m fine with her never doing scary things!! Apparently heaps of people have this issue and it’s very minor so they didn’t want to worry us in those first few weeks.
A lot of kids with heart conditions have surgery to repair them at around 3 months of age. These kids tend to be a bit more behind in their development as their bodies work harder to just keep functioning normally so the extra stuff is often too difficult for them. They also lose time while recovering, but once the surgery is done and recovered they catch up to their peers pretty quickly. Typically developing kids can have these same heart issues, but they occur much more often in kids with Down syndrome.

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