VSD which stands for Ventricular septal defect also known as one of the most common congenital heart disorders that mostly find in newborn. This disorder is described as the presence of a hole at the wall which is also called septum, and the septum is kind of tissue’s wall which keeps the lower ventricles of the heart separated and also allows blood to flow from the left side to the right side of the heart. Because of Ventricular septal defect, they purify and oxygenated blood gets forced back into the lungs, rather than to flow into the whole body which becomes the cause of dysfunction of the heart.
As like all the other heart disorder it also has a condition from mild to moderate condition. A mild Ventricular septal defect generally not causes of any big problem and condition and it easily gets closes its own. However, in the case of moderate and severe ventricular septal defects may require surgical treatment as soon as possible to avoid heart-related complications in the future.
The human heart has four chambers which are divided into upper and lower chambers. Upper chambers have two parts right and left upper chamber which is called atrium. Lower chambers also consist of two parts right and left lower chamber which is called a ventricle.
In the normal heart, the left and right chambers are completely apart from each other through the wall of tissue called a septum. And the right and the left atrium are also separated from each other with the help of atrial septum and likewise, the right and left ventricle are also separated from each other by the ventricular septum.
With the normal birth procedure, there is no hole and defect between the two ventricles, but some infants are born with VSD called ventricular septal defects. In the case of infants or newborn, it is possible to have a small VSD which is even very normal and easily closes within the first few weeks of birth.
Ventricular septal defect – Signs and Symptoms:
Signs and symptoms highly dependent upon the condition of your baby, size of the hole in hear and overall health of your child. Symptoms of this kind of heart disorders may starts appear within the first few days, weeks or it can also take months from the birth of the child. Babies who have Ventricular septal defect noticed to get tire easily, have a poor appetite and feeding condition, sometime they may experience breathlessness. The most noticeable symptoms are that you will see you, child, not have optimal physical growth and development. The signs of a Ventricular septal defect are noticeable at birth.
If the size of the ventricular septal defect is small, then it is possible that you will notice any symptoms in the early stage but it will start appearing later in childhood. Your child’s doc can diagnose a heart defect during a regular check-up if doc hears a murmuring sound while listening to the baby’s heart with a stethoscope. In some cases, a Ventricular septal defect remains unidentified until a baby gets older. In these cases, the victim can face problems such as fatigue, weakness, irregular and fast heartbeat, and situation of breathlessness while lying down.
Causes of the ventricular septal defect:
Yet, there are no certified causes of the ventricular septal defect. Often this disorder occurs early while the fetal heart development. Mostly environmental and genetic factors are blamed to play a very important role in causing a ventricular septal defect. Ventricular septal defects can occur separately or it can also happen because of other congenital heart disorder.
It happens while the fetal development, when the septum of baby’s heart (which is a muscular wall that separates the heart into left and right chambers) doesn’t develop completely between the ventricles, then a ventricular septal defect occurs in the heart.
In a normal situation, the right side of the heart supplies the deoxygenated blood into the lungs to let it oxygenated. And then the left part of the heart supplies out the oxygenated blood to the rest of the body. A Ventricular septal defect allows the oxygenated blood to get to mix with the deoxygenated blood and which causes the heart to work unconditionally for supply enough oxygen to the body’s tissues.
Ventricular septal defects can happen within different sizes and they can be located in multiple areas in the heart’s septum. There is also a possibility that a person can have more than one Ventricular septal defect at once.
Risk and Complications with VSD:
As we have mentioned above that a small ventricular septal defect might be not harmful and never cause any problems. But moderate and severe defects can cause a number of disorders with heart from mild to life-threatening. There are such risk factors it includes: –
Heart failure: – heart failure can be the situation or risk factor in case of medium or large ventricular septal defects because in this situation the heart needs to give more pressure to supply required blood to the body. And because of this, the chances of heart failure increases if medium to large ventricular septal defects isn’t treated.
Pulmonary hypertension: – Due to ventricular septal defects the blood flow to the lungs get increased which may causes of high blood pressure in pulmonary hypertension (arteries of lungs), which can permanently damage them.
Endocarditis: – It is a kind of heart infection which is rare but can happen due to ventricular septal defects.
Other heart problems: – There is a variety of heart problem that can occur due to ventricular septal defects which include abnormal heart rhythms and valve problems.
Treatments of ventricular septal defects:
Treatment of ventricular septal defects varies upon the size of the defects, as we have said that if the hole is small then the chances are that it might get closed after few day or weeks of birth. But in the case where symptoms are more noticeable then it may require the proper treatment and surgery is one of the best treatment for curing ventricular septal defects. Doctors suggest having the surgery as early because it may get complicated with the time.
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