Congenital Heart Disease Support Group

As part of normal fetal circulation, there is a hole in the wall between the two upper chambers of the heart. Now usually that closes up in the first days of life, but sometimes it doesn't. That type of ASD usually closes on it's own and doesn't need further treatment.
However, sometimes it does need to have further treatment if it is causing problems. Is your daughter growing and active? Does she get short of breath or tired easily? These are some of the criteria they will look at before they make the decision to do surgery. They will wait for surgery as long as possible, the heart is bigger, the child is stronger.
Given that they knew it was a two vessel cord, and 1 kidney, I'm kind of surprised that they didn't do a full workup but... ASD isn't uncommon and usually doesn't cause long term problems

My daughter was born with a hole in her heart the size of an adult finger. It healed in about a year as I recall. She is 30 years old and extremely healthy and active. My father also had a hole in his heart when he was born. He died of cancer at age of 69.

Hi, I would like to say that I can understand how concerned you must be feeling about your daughter. My daughter had a whole of almost 2.8cm and was fixed by an open-heart surgery at age 5. I don't know how big it was when she was born, but I did a lot of research when we found out about the whole. I feel and will hope that your daughters whole will close as she grows. The size of whole that you mentioned of your daughter can be closed by a device called Amplatzer. Read up on it. Infact the Amplatzer procedure is a quick procedure and usually the child goes home the same night. I was told that if my daughters whole was smaller that she could have been a candidate for it. I do feel that your daughters whole will close, but if not, i don't think she will have to undergo open-heart. Be strong for her and if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to write back. May God protect your family!

Hi there, I am 30 years old now, but I was born with Ventricular Septal Defect, that was surgically repaired when I was 8 months old in Richmond,VA At MCV. I have since recovered however as I am getting old they are finding more things going wrong with my heart, such as, mitral valve prolapse with regure,pulomnary stenosis,SVT,PVC's, I still have a heart murmur to this day because my patch didnt close the hole completely from what Im told by my mother my hole was the size if you will of a 50 cent peice which is a huge hole.

I'm also surprised that they didn't do a full workup. If they don't want you to bring her back for a full year, I wouldn't worry. It must be fairly small.

Hello. I was born with an ASD and a VSD. I was told growing up that it would close on its own but never did. Actually both holes got larger as I got older. They patched both holes when I was 17 years old.