CHD Facts and Statistics CHD Awareness Week 2013

How well do you know your CHD Facts? If you are telling your CHD Story, Raising Awareness, or reaching out to the media for CHD Awareness Week, double check your facts. With more Awareness comes more research, and statistics can change from year to year.

These are some of the latest Facts & Statistics compiled by the Congenital Heart Public Health Consortium.

What is a congenital heart defect?

• Congenital heart defects (CHDs) are problems with the heart’s structure that are present at birth.
• Common examples include holes in the inside walls of the heart and narrowed or leaky valves. In more severe forms of CHDs, blood vessels or heart chambers may be missing, poorly formed, and/or in the wrong place.

How common are congenital heart defects?

• CHDs are the most common birth defects. CHDs occur in almost 1% of births.
• An approximate 100-200 deaths are due to unrecognized heart disease in newborns each year. These numbers exclude those dying before diagnosis.
• Nearly 40,000 infants in the U.S. are born each year with CHDs.
• CHDs are as common as autism and about twenty-five times more common than cystic fibrosis.
• Approximately two to three million individuals are thought to be living in the United States with CHDs. Because there is no U.S. system to track CHDs beyond early childhood, more precise estimates are not available.
• Thanks to improvements in survival, the number of adults living with CHDs is increasing. It is now believed that the number of adults living with CHDs is at least equal to, if not greater than, the number of children living with CHDs.

via Mended Little Hearts. You can learn more CHD Facts and Statistics, such as “What is the health impact of congenital heart defects?”, “What causes congenital heart defects?”, and “What are the health care access and cost challenges related to congenital heart defects?” on the Mended Little Hearts website.