How to grow up healthy for children with precocious heart disease

  When a child has congenital heart disease, many parents are nervous, scared and anxious about it. What should I do if my child has it? Will it be the same as a healthy and normal child in the future? …… I think this is a question that every parent with congenital heart disease needs to know.  The most common congenital birth defect in children is congenital heart disease, which is a cardiovascular malformation caused by abnormal development of the heart vessels during the fetal period. According to the results of birth defect surveillance in China, the incidence of precocious heart disease is on the rise. There are many classifications of congenital heart disease, the common classification can be divided into simple and complex, simple congenital heart disease, refers to the heart defect is small, the impact on the body is not significant, this type of patients can be without treatment, regular follow-up can be; complex congenital heart disease, refers to the heart malformation is more complex, this kind of if not timely treatment, heart malformation will become more and more serious, and even affect the brain, neurological development, etc.. Nearly 90% of precardiac diseases are related to the environment in which the mother was pregnant, such as impact, X-ray exposure, environmental pollution, diet, colds and bacterial infections in the first trimester of pregnancy. Diagnosis can be confirmed in time through cardiac ultrasound during pregnancy, and 18-24 weeks of pregnancy is the prime time for definitive diagnosis of precordial disease. In the past 20 years, due to the rapid development of echocardiography, cardiovascular angiography and cardiac catheterization, as well as the development of low-temperature anesthesia and direct cardiac surgery under extracorporeal circulation, most congenital heart diseases can be treated by interventional methods, and certain complex heart malformations (such as aortic misalignment and aortic constriction) can also be operated in infancy or even in the neonatal period, making it possible for most children with congenital The prognosis has been greatly improved, and the survival rate of children with congenital heart disease has been greatly improved.  Nowadays, children with congenital heart disease are getting more and more attention from the public and receiving cutting-edge treatment, however, the overall growth and development of the child and the quality of life are rarely understood and cared for by parents. The general public believes that once the heart defect is grown or repaired, the child will be fine and healthy. In fact, many medical reports show that children with precocious heart disease are at risk of developmental delay, cognitive and speech impairment, and that growth and development assessment, rehabilitation management, continuous monitoring and regular follow-up during the treatment process are very important and indispensable, and need the high attention of medical professionals and parents.  In 2012, the American Heart Association (AHA) published a scientific statement on the assessment and management of neurodevelopmental conditions in children with congenital heart disease, suggesting that children with congenital heart disease are at increasing risk for developmental delays, lags or disorders. Complex congenital heart disease can present with problems in intelligence, learning, language and vision, perception, attention, executive skills, fine motor, gross motor, and psychological behavior, and children with heart transplantation can present with lags in motor development, speech development, or IQ. In addition to these developmental problems, a large number of recent studies have confirmed that children with precordial disease may have communication deficits, reduced social skills, and outgrowth compared to healthy children. Developmental monitoring, screening, assessment and reassessment of children with this disease group throughout childhood allows for early detection of other deficits, selection of the best time to treat them, and improvement of the child’s learning, behavior, psychological and adaptive abilities. In the statement, the U.S. cardiologist or rehabilitation physician evaluates the child at each home visit of a child with prediabetes, forming a process of continuous supervision that continues from infancy through adolescence, with relevant risk factor analysis and observation, developmental screening for different age periods (9 months, 18 months, 24 months, 30 months, and 48 months), or continuous supervision (early childhood through adolescence), and develop appropriate rehabilitation strategies. Early cognitive and developmental assessments are particularly important because motor and behavioral deficits that occur in children with prediabetes can be identified early and developmental reassessment and rehabilitation protocols can be redesigned at each periodic review.  In an authoritative study, the structural brain examination and neurodevelopmental assessment of children with predilection for cardiac disease through MRI, ultrasound, and CT imaging methods revealed that the incidence of brain lesions in children with predilection for cardiac disease is high, with a 34% incidence of brain lesions in children with large artery displacement, rising to 66% in children with left heart lesions. In addition, parents’ anxiety and concern for their children with precordial disease, often because they are afraid that their children will fall here and there and run into that, overprotective of their children and do not allow them to participate in sports, so that these children lack the ability to perceive and experience sports, and children reduce physical activity, which can cause obstacles to motor development, psychosocial development, self-concept, etc., and therefore lead to a continuous reduction in the range of activities, long-term, can form a vicious circle The pattern of  Infancy and early childhood are the fastest growing and most changing stages of a person’s life, and play a fundamental role in their future development in motor, speech, cognitive, and social adaptive skills, etc. It is important to identify certain risk factors for children’s growth and development during this stage and to provide early rehabilitation. During childhood, a child’s growth and development proceeds continuously, and each stage has certain characteristics and patterns, and the growth rate varies. Studies at home and abroad have confirmed that children with prediabetes are generally lagging behind in neurodevelopment, motor function, cognition, etc. Therefore, developmental assessment of children with prediabetes is beneficial to understanding the child’s developmental level, analyzing the problems that may occur so that timely intervention and rehabilitation can be carried out to improve the quality of life of the child himself and the whole family, and is of great significance in promoting the development and social adaptability of children with prediabetes. Using the international standard scale, the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine of Xinhua Hospital has conducted growth and development assessment and rehabilitation guidance for more than two hundred children with precocious heart disease.  Precocious heart disease is not scary because we already have the most sophisticated treatment technology to treat almost all types of precocious heart disease. However, disease treatment should also pay attention to the developmental problems of children at every stage to avoid leading to future abnormalities in movement and cognition. Children are our sunshine, and being good to children with prediabetes is not only about giving them the best treatment, but also about always paying attention to his/her/their overall growth and development, so that the children can grow up healthy in the right health management.