Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week

February 7-14 is Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week.

(I got this great message from my friend Melissa's blog. She did such a great job, I had to pass it on.)

**A Congenital Heart Defect (CHD) means a child is born with an abnormally structured heart and/or large vessels. Such hearts may have incomplete or missing parts, may be put together the wrong way, may have holes between chamber partitions or may have narrow or leaky valves or narrow vessels. There are approximately 35 different types of congenital heart defects.

**CHDs are the #1 birth defect in America, affecting approximately one in one hundred or 40,000 newborns every year. Each day 10,830 babies are born in the U.S.; 411 of them have a birth defect -- of those, 87 will be born with a congenital heart defect -- that's more than cerebral palsy (27), sickle cell disease (27), Down Syndrome (12), and oral/facial clefts (11) COMBINED (total of 77). (According to the March of Dimes)

**CHDs are responsible for one third of all birth defect-related deaths, and sadly 20 percent of children who make it through birth will not survive past their first birthday.
In the United States, twice as many children die from congenital heart defects each year than from all forms of childhood cancer combined, yet funding for pediatric cancer research is five times higher than funding for CHD.

**For many children a new heart is the only option, but only about 30% of the children who need a heart transplant receive one in time. In 2007 there were 327 pediatric heart transplants performed in the United States. The average heart transplant only lasts around 10 years.

Kynslee was part of the 20 percent of children who make it through birth but do not survive past their first birthday. She was actually born with not just one type of congenital heart defect, but several. We knew her chances for survival were slim because of this. But we are so glad we had her for almost seven months.

What can you do?
RAISE AWARENESS
DONATE BLOOD
REGISTER TO BECOME AN ORGAN DONOR


Intermountain Healing Hearts is such a wonderful support group for families affected by congenital heart defects. They set up signs and tables with information at Primary Children's Hospital to help raise awareness.

To find out more about Intermountain Healing Hearts, click on the image on the side bar. Also, to find out more information about Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week, click on the image on the side bar.

Kynslee after her first open heart surgery, at three days old.



Her second open heart surgery was actually one year ago today, on February 11th. That was such a long day. The operation took a lot longer than planned, and after some complications, she made it through. She went into surgery at 8:00am and finally at 8:00 pm, the surgeon came out to talk to us. Lucky for us, my cousin Lynndi was working that day and she kept coming in to check on us and to give us food and warm blankets, and even some games to play to give us something to do. :)