Kids faced with higher risk of heart ailments
11 Nov 2013 12:10 AM GMT
Doctors say the major reasons behind the problem could be late childbirth or expecting mother’s medical history.
Around 100 open heart surgeries have been performed on children below one at Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital this year. This has been a rise of around 5 per cent from 2012.
‘We conducted approximately 500 open heart surgeries so far this year and out of these 100 surgeries were performed on kids between 3 months and one year old. No doubt, surgeries on children are more complicated and technically more difficult because of lower resistance power and also smaller heart size, said Dr. Vijay Gupta, consultant and head of department - Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery, RML hospital.
‘Open heart surgeries are crucial for children suffering from heart diseases caused due to birth disorders, congenital heart defects and wrong connection of heart chambers owing to chromosomal deficiency. Usually, we carry out two surgeries; first being palliative surgery and second corrective surgery in kids and it takes around four-five hours to conduct such a surgery,’ Dr. Gupta added.
Dr. Gupta said that the success rate in such surgeries is around 95 per cent and only in rare cases do they witness a casualty. ‘After a surgery is over, the patient is monitored for a week and in case of any problem we conduct another phase of surgery exactly after a month to eradicate the problem from its root,’ Dr. Gupta added. He also said that after these surgeries the child generally grows into a normal and healthy adult.
‘While in adults general reasons for heart problems are drinking, smoking, hypertension, unhealthy diet and poor lifestyle, the reasons for the same in kids are mainly genetic or some infections and defects during childbirth itself,’ Dr. Gupta added.
Around 100 open heart surgeries have been performed on children below one at Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital this year. This has been a rise of around 5 per cent from 2012.
‘We conducted approximately 500 open heart surgeries so far this year and out of these 100 surgeries were performed on kids between 3 months and one year old. No doubt, surgeries on children are more complicated and technically more difficult because of lower resistance power and also smaller heart size, said Dr. Vijay Gupta, consultant and head of department - Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery, RML hospital.
‘Open heart surgeries are crucial for children suffering from heart diseases caused due to birth disorders, congenital heart defects and wrong connection of heart chambers owing to chromosomal deficiency. Usually, we carry out two surgeries; first being palliative surgery and second corrective surgery in kids and it takes around four-five hours to conduct such a surgery,’ Dr. Gupta added.
Dr. Gupta said that the success rate in such surgeries is around 95 per cent and only in rare cases do they witness a casualty. ‘After a surgery is over, the patient is monitored for a week and in case of any problem we conduct another phase of surgery exactly after a month to eradicate the problem from its root,’ Dr. Gupta added. He also said that after these surgeries the child generally grows into a normal and healthy adult.
‘While in adults general reasons for heart problems are drinking, smoking, hypertension, unhealthy diet and poor lifestyle, the reasons for the same in kids are mainly genetic or some infections and defects during childbirth itself,’ Dr. Gupta added.
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