Symptoms

Congenital heart defects cause a wide range of symptoms. Your baby may have only mild symptoms and tire easily, for example. He or she may have life-threatening symptoms, such as severe difficulty breathing. Or your baby may not have any symptoms that you notice at birth but may develop them later as he or she grows.

Common symptoms of a congenital heart defect include:

• Difficulty breathing. This often is noticed when your baby is active, such as during feeding or crying.
• Poor weight gain. When most of a baby's energy is spent pumping blood to the body, little is left for eating and growing. Your baby may tire when eating and may take longer than expected to finish feeding.
• Sudden weight gain or puffiness and swelling of the skin, seen most often around the eyes and in the hands and feet and may be most noticeable when your baby first wakes up. The weight gain or puffiness can be caused by fluid retention that is related to poor blood circulation.
• Sweating, especially on the head. You may notice that your baby has damp hair and cool, moist skin.
• Fatigue and fussiness. Your baby may be too tired to play and may sleep most of the time.
• Fewer wet diapers than expected. After the first week, most newborns wet at least 6 diapers in a 24-hour period. You may also notice that your baby's urine is dark and strong-smelling.

Blood flow problems caused by heart defects can mean that your baby gets less oxygen. This happens mostly in children who have cyanotic heart defects ("blue babies"). Cyanotic heart defects are abnormal openings between the heart chambers that allow oxygen-poor blood from the right side of the heart to mix with oxygen-rich blood from the left side of the heart. Defects that do not cause cyanosis (acyanotic heart defects) do not normally interfere with the amount of oxygen or blood that reaches the body's tissues.

If a baby has trouble getting oxygen, the baby may have symptoms such as:

• A bluish tint (cyanosis) to the skin, lips, and nail beds. This becomes worse when your baby cries or eats.
• Slower-than-expected growth and development (with more severe congenital heart defects). Your baby may weigh less, be shorter, and take longer than expected to learn skills such as standing and walking.

Symptoms usually go away after the defect is corrected. A congenital heart defect that is repaired at the right time is less likely to permanently affect your child's growth and development.