Has anyone been told their baby has VSD??

Question

I had my anatomy scan today and though we were happy to find out we are having a girl. We also received a bit of a frightening diagnosis. My Dr. told me today my daughter has 2 holes in her heart on the left side, stating one would likely close on its own and the other may have to closed with surgery. This is something I’ve never heard of and I’m naturally worried about my baby girl. After googling and researching to get a more in-depth understanding it seems as if it may just be a heart murmur. However the thought is still scary. Has anyone else experienced this? Or know of anyone who has. Any advice would be comforting at this point.!

Answer

My toddler was born with a large VSD that had not been caught at our ultrasound. First off, he is doing great now!!! It was detected at his 2 week check up after we noticed some unusual (labored) breathing, and he had a pretty intense murmur that hadn’t been detected earlier. He was put on diuretics to manage heart failure symptoms and was put on a high calorie diet (we supplemented breastfeeding with higher calorie bottles), as failure to grow is a main reason to have surgery. With the size and location of my son’s (higher up in the ventricular septum), and with him being symptomatic, open heart surgery was recommended at 2.5 months old. My understanding is it’s one of the most straightforward, simple heart surgeries to do, but it’s a major surgery. We were incredibly lucky that his started to close spontaneously at his last follow-up before surgery (tissue migrated over and started to cover it), so we never had to do that surgery. He still has a small hole that is being monitored, but he’s healthy and doing really well. At this point, if it ever needs to be closed fully, they can do the much less invasive catheter option instead of open heart surgery.
The cardiologist will be a better person to talk to about your baby’s specific VSD, but for us, the biggest impacts were labored breathing, which was managed with medications, difficulty feeding (many babies need a feeding tube before surgical closure), and just lots of trips to the children’s hospital for echos and monitoring weight gain and symptoms. We also had some genetic testing done to make sure we weren’t missing a bigger issue, but there were no other issues. 
We’re doing a fetal echo at 24 weeks for baby #2 as we’re at increased risk.
I’m sorry you’re going through this, but it sounds like you’ll be in good hands since they’ve already detected it!

Answer

I was born with one. And I had a procedure at the 13 to close the hole. It wasn’t bad at all I never had any problems. I hear now you can get fixed at birth. All they do is take a small coil though the major artery near the groin and fill it up. No need to worry

Answer

Definitely talk to a pediatric cardiologist. Like a lot of others have said, it's a relatively straightforward procedure and most kids don't have any issues. Fetal circulation is really interesting, it's also not uncommon to have an atrial septal defect called a patent foramen ovale that goes undetected into adulthood. Usually, it closes at birth because its job is done once baby's lungs are working.
If they haven't already done so, they may order a fetal echo to get a closer look and you'll be following up after birth, baby will probably have at a minimum, an echo (ultrasound of the heart) after birth to see how their heart is working. 
Hope everything is best case scenario!

Answer

One of my friends has been born with a hole in their heart and they plugged it with a surgery after he was born. I know he told me about it because it didn’t impact his life and he never remembered anything about it  up until the point he wanted to enlist into the army as a soldier and got declined because of it. For the rest it has not impacted his life and if I understood correctly the whole procedure was actually not that heavy from his parents point of view but just sounded scary!

Answer

My nephew was born with a hole in his heart. Not sure if it's the same diagnosis as what you're talking about. He had to go to Riley for surgery but everything went well and now he is a very healthy and happy 6 year old boy. That is a very scary diagnosis but I hope this gives you a bit of reassurance.

Has anyone been told their baby has VSD??

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