Screening for congenital heart disease in newborns at urban community health centre

Abstract

Background: Congenital heart disease (CHD) is a defect in the cardiovascular structure and function and represents a heterogeneous group of defects with little known cause. Most of them are diagnosed in newborn period, yet some may be missed only to be diagnosed later. CHDs present with little or no symptoms and hence are under diagnosed in centres with inadequate facilities. So, this study was conducted to find the prevalence of CHDs in neonates delivered in our centre.Methods: The study was conducted in an urban community centre from May 2018 to January 2019. Babies delivered here were subjected to clinical examination, pulse oximetry at our centre and detailed ECHO examination was done at a nearby PHC where a trained cardiologist was available.Results: There were 783 babies delivered during the study period, of which 436 babies underwent echo and formed the study group. Totally 35 (8%) babies had some abnormality on echo. Clinically murmurs were present in 10 newborns. Critical congenital heart disease was seen in 3(0.6%) babies. These babies were diagnosed with severe PS, Bicuspid aortic valve with severe AS and pulmonary atresia. VSD was the commonest malformation followed by ASD and PDA.Conclusions: Screening of CHD helps to detect defects which otherwise would have been missed. Critical CHD could be diagnosed which enabled us to refer the babies for early surgery.