What are the symptoms of a child's heart disease?

Children with heart problems are a problem that parents should be more concerned about. In fact, many children with heart problems will show some symptoms in the early stages, such as heart failure. Children with the disease often have pale complexion, difficulty breathing, tachycardia, and other phenomena. Some people will also experience problems such as fainting and sudden death. Therefore, once these symptoms are found in children, it is necessary to pay attention to them.

1. Heart failure: Neonatal heart failure is considered an emergency, and most of the time it is caused by severe heart defects in the child. Its clinical manifestations are due to congestion of the pulmonary circulation and systemic circulation and reduced cardiac output. The children are pale, short of breath, have difficulty breathing and tachycardia. The heart rate can reach 160-190 beats per minute and the blood pressure is often low. You can hear the rhythm of galloping horses. The liver is enlarged, but peripheral edema is less common.

2. Cyanosis: It is caused by the mixing of arterial and venous blood due to right-to-left shunting. It is most obvious on the tip of the nose, lips, and nail beds.

3. Squatting: Children with cyanotic congenital heart disease, especially those with tetralogy of Fallot, often show squatting signs after activities. This can increase systemic vascular resistance and thus reduce the right-to-left shunt caused by the septal defect, while also increasing venous blood return to the right heart, thereby improving pulmonary blood flow.

4. Clubbing of fingers and toes and polycythemia: Cyanotic congenital heart disease is almost always accompanied by clubbing of fingers and toes and polycythemia. The mechanism of clubbing is still unclear, but polycythemia is a physiological response of the body to arterial hypoxia.

5. Developmental disorders: Children with congenital heart disease often develop abnormally, with symptoms such as being thin, malnourished, and delayed.

6. The child has rapid breathing, difficulty feeding, or choking during feeding or even refusing to eat . These are obvious signs of heart failure.

Repeated respiratory infections and bronchitis, especially in children, may be related to improper care or resistance, but congenital heart disease is also a possibility. Children with more serious conditions may even have hoarse crying or cry without sound, which is caused by the enlarged heart or blood vessels compressing the recurrent laryngeal nerve.