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In instances of gentle congenital coronary heart defects, extra prenatal visits are related to a better chance of applicable supply at a group hospital, based on a research revealed in JAMA Community Open. Outcomes counsel that extra prenatal care is useful for households and will enable their newborns with gentle coronary heart defects to obtain the proper stage of care nearer to house, versus touring to a regional cardiac surgical middle, which will be costly, taxing and aggravating for households.
This evaluation was introduced on the American Coronary heart Affiliation Scientific Classes on November 9, 2025.
Congenital coronary heart defects are the commonest and resource-intensive delivery defects in the US. Infants with probably the most complicated coronary heart defects are normally directed to regional cardiac surgical facilities, whereas infants with gentle coronary heart defects can safely obtain the proper care at a group hospital.
“Our findings underscore the importance of prenatal care in driving the utilization of appropriate care for newborns with heart defects,” mentioned senior writer Joyce Woo, MD, MS, pediatric heart specialist at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Kids’s Hospital of Chicago and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Medical Social Sciences at Northwestern College Feinberg College of Medication.
“One prenatal visit is usually not enough, since fetal heart disease can change over the duration of pregnancy. It can potentially become less severe than initially suspected. If the newborn does not need surgery right away, then remaining closer to home for delivery can be the right decision. Many families might prefer that. Risk-appropriate care benefits the overall health care system too.”
Within the research, Dr. Woo and colleagues used a statewide administrative database to research information on 12,113 infants born with coronary heart defects in Illinois between 2013–2021. They aimed to estimate how two parts of prenatal care adequacy—initiation of care and frequency of visits—are associated to supply location for neonates with congenital coronary heart defects.
They discovered that delayed prenatal care initiation was related to an elevated chance of supply at a cardiac surgical middle in comparison with no prenatal care, whatever the severity of the guts defect. However for infants with gentle congenital coronary heart defects, extra prenatal visits had been related to a 7 percentage-point lower in likelihood of supply at a cardiac surgical middle.
“Caring for children with heart defects begins before birth. Prenatal care ensures that babies with congenital heart defects are born at the right location with the appropriate intensity of care based on their clinical needs. It also allows for consideration for their family’s preferences for delivery location,” mentioned Dr. Woo.
“Our findings can also help inform statewide policies on perinatal resource allocation.”
Extra info:
JAMA Community Open (2025).
Supplied by
Ann & Robert H. Lurie Kids’s Hospital of Chicago
Quotation:
Extra prenatal visits linked to proper stage of look after infants born with coronary heart defects (2025, November 9)
retrieved 9 November 2025
from https://medicalxpress.com/information/2025-11-prenatal-linked-infants-born-heart.html
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