Updated March 05, 2015.
Written or reviewed by a board-certified physician. See About.com's Medical Review Board.
Congenital heart defects (CHD) occur at the rate of about 1 in every 125 births. Many of these babies are not diagnosed immediately, which can be dangerous. Every newborn, whether born in a hospital at home or at a birth center, is given a physical exam, but that exam is not not necessarily effective at identifying heart disease. A better approach is to add a simple screening exam with a pulse oximeter.
Using the pulse oximetry allows doctors to measure the amount of oxygen in your baby's blood.
It is a painless, non-invasive screening. It has been shown to have a low false-positive rate, and its use has increased the number of true diagnoses of congenital heart disease. However, this screening is currently not mandated at birth the way screening for other congenital metabolic diseases are.
If your doctor or midwife does not do this test normally, you might want to request that it be done since screening with the the pulse oximetry may help reduce the mortality related with some forms of congenital heart disease. It is fairly simple to do even outside of the hospital and can be done at your pediatrician's office in the days following the birth.
Sources:
De-Wahl Granelli A, et al "Impact of pulse oximetry screening on the detection of duct dependent congenital heart disease: a Swedish prospective screening study in 39,821 newborns" BMJ 2009; DOI: 10.1136/bmj.a3037.
March of Dimes. Congenital Heart Defects. May 2008.
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