What Causes Congenital Heart Disease? We Don't Know
With a name like "congenital", you could be forgiven wondering if strange genitalia is what causes congenital heart disease. You might even think that bad luck in the genetic lottery is what causes congenital heart disease. Actually, we really don't have a definite answer as to why some people get this disease and some don't. It is thought that about nine in every 1000 newborn babies are born with congenital heart disease.
What Is It?
Technically, congenital heart disease is a fancy name for a heart defect of the blood vessels. It is thought you develop these defects before birth. Sometimes they can be detected before birth or right after birth, bit they also can be detected in childhood and in adulthood. You can go for years without realizing you have congenital heart disease. By the way, "congenital" means "present at birth" and has nothing to do with your genitals.
Risk Factors
Although we don't know what causes congenital heart disease, we do know there are certain risk factors that can make one person more prone to getting this than others. These factors include Down Syndrome; alcohol or drugs taken by your mother when she was pregnant with you or a bad infection like German measles your mother contracted during her first three months of carrying you in her womb.
This is one reason why it's so important to get regular check ups all during your pregnancy if you suspect you are pregnant. There are a lot of free to low cost medical programs in many countries to help pregnant women get their check ups and try to avoid getting an infection during pregnancy. What causes congenital heart disease - whatever it is - seems to always happen during pregnancy.
Drugs - illegal or legal - also seem to play a big role in what causes congenital heart disease. When a drug addict or alcoholic women gets pregnant, they need to stop their chemical diet but usually cannot. There are also programs in the United States and Europe to help these women. These women don't get pregnant out of stupidity; they often have to become prostitutes in order to survive.
This is one argument as to why abortion should be kept legal. In cases where the mother is a drug addict or alcoholic, the baby is given a bad prognosis of ever having a halfway decent life, physically or mentally. Although abortion is considered a political debate and not a medical one, the future misery of the baby should be taken into consideration.
