Olivers Heart

I found out about Olivers Heart defect at my 15 week scan, I knew he had something wrong but because he was still so small it wasnt until around 21 weeks that I got an actual diagnosis on what was wrong with Olivers heart. Once we recieved a diagnosis for his heart it was then decided he would be delivered in melbourne.

This completely outweighed Olivers possibility of having down syndrome and my focus was on his heart and if my baby would be ok.

Oliver has whats called an unbalanced AVSD (atrioventricular septal defect) and he would need a surgery sometime after birth, generally around the 3 month old mark!

Olivers heart was always monitored closely, they needed to check growth and make sure it was in proportion to his body, if it was too small that would be bad, and if it was too big that would also be bad.
His heart continued to grow at a fairly normal size.

Olivers chances of being well after birth were great! I was told he would be ok and his little body would eventually let us know when he needed the surgery.

Below is a detailed description of what his defect is.

Atrioventricular Septal Defect (AVSD) [atrioventricular=the area between the upper and lower chambers of the heart–especially at the valves, septum= wall] A combination of defects in the heart that affects both the septum (wall between the chambers of the heart) and the valves between the upper and lower chambers of the heart.
Atrioventricular defect – The tricuspid and mitral valves attach to each other instead of the septal wall.  Then you essentially have one combined valve (that doesn’t close all the way) instead of two valves that function properly.  This creates a hole between the 4 chambers of the heart. Blood from all 4 chambers mix together.  Blood leaving the heart (heading to the body AND heading to the lungs) contain an unhealthy mix of both oxygen-rich and oxygen-poor blood.
Septal defect – a large hole in the wall between the ventricles (two lower chambers) of the heart.

In unbalanced AVSD (left dominant), the right ventricle (which pumps oxygen-rich blood to the body) is noticeably smaller than the left ventricle.  In a “balanced” heart, the ventricles are roughly the same size.

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