The Cook Children's Heart Center team specializes in providing advanced care for newborns, infants, children, teens, and young adults with acquired or congenital heart and cardiovascular ailments. We treat a wide variety of conditions, some of them very rare.
Depending on the type of cardiovascular disease or disorder your child is diagnosed with, they may come to us for a single treatment or, if they require a lifetime of attention, become a part of our Heart Center family. Our Heart Center doctors specialize in pediatric conditions of the heart. That means they are not only experts in even the most rare conditions and treatments, they also understand the unique requirements for treating those conditions in developing bodies. To help you and your child better understand matters of the heart, we've provided information on some of the most common conditions we see. Learn how we diagnose them, what causes them, who gets them, and–most importantly, how our specialists treat them.
Adult Congenital Heart Disease
Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the most common birth defect, affecting nearly 1% of all newborns. This has created a growing population of adolescent and adult cardiac patients that continue to require specialized, life-long care. |
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Arrhythmias
An arrhythmia is an abnormal heart beat/rhythm which can occur throughout childhood into adulthood. Children born with certain genetic or health disorders may have an arrhythmia. An arrhythmia may occur during illness and medical procedures. |
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Cardiomyopathy
Depending on the type, cardiomyopathy disease can cause the heart muscle to thicken, degenerate, enlarge or become rigid. What they all have in common is that they interfere with the heart's ability to receive and/or pump blood. |
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Congenital Defects
A congenital heart disorder is any kind of defect in the heart that is present when the baby is born. These disorders are formed in the first weeks of pregnancy as the baby's heart is developing. |
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Endocarditis
Endocarditis is an infection that occurs in the lining or valves of the heart. The infections are most often bacterial, but they can also be viral or fungal. Some medical conditions that cause the blood to clot too easily may cause a form of endocarditis. |
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Heterotaxy Heart Defects
Heterotaxy is a disorder that results in certain organs forming on the wrong side of the body, most typically the heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, stomach, intestines and spleen. This results in organs that cannot function correctly. |
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Hypertension
You may know hypertension by its other name, high blood pressure. And you may have thought of it as a condition associated with adults. But kids can have high blood pressure too, even as infants. |
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Kawasaki Disease
Kawasaki disease is a very serious disease that causes inflammation in the blood vessels throughout the body. The good news is, recognizing and treating the disease early can greatly reduce the risk of long-term effects on your child's heart. |
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Murmurs
Even though most murmurs do not mean anything is wrong, sometimes a heart problem can cause a murmur. These types of murmurs are called abnormal. |
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Palpitations
Lots of things can cause the heart to beat quickly. This can trigger palpitations, which are fluttering heartbeats – the feeling that the heart has skipped a beat or is beating irregularly. |
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Syncope
Syncope, which is the medical term for fainting, happens when there is a sudden drop in blood pressure, reducing blood flow through the body and the amount of oxygen delivered to the brain. |
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Appointments and referrals
Rare and complex congenital heart defects don’t always present a clear cut method of treatment. Often, there are multiple ways of approaching the diagnosis. Our physicians also are available to provide second opinions for families seeking alternative treatment options. If you would like to schedule an appointment, refer a patient or speak to our staff, please call our offices at 682-885-2140.
