I am writing on behalf of my eight-year-old daughter. She has recently been diagnosed as having a heart murmur.
It was never explained what a murmur was, how serious a condition it is or if it is something that will go away.
She had a 24-hour ECG (electrocardiogram) done yesterday, but now we have to wait to get the results of it from the paediatric cardiologist.
They also mentioned that she has an irregular heartbeat. Is this the same thing as a murmur or not?
At the back of her throat, her uvula is split in two. The doctor said that this is often associated with heart problems.
Her uvula was only noticed by myself when she was three years old.
I have always thought that at birth, children were given a thorough check over in hospitals.
I'm sorry that nobody has given you a clear explanation about what exactly your daughter's diagnosis means – medical terms are often difficult to understand and need a bit of translation into everyday language.
Let's start by talking about heart murmurs. Blood usually flows smoothly into and out of the heart, but if there is a structural abnormality such as a leaky heart valve or a 'hole in the heart' the blood flow through the heart may become turbulent.
It is this turbulent blood flow that creates a noise that can be heard with the aid of a stethoscope and is known as a heart murmur.
Murmurs don't always mean that something is wrong with the structure of the heart – sometimes they are said to be 'innocent' and may disappear when the child lies down for example.
That's why was important for your daughter to be checked out by the specialist (the paediatric cardiologist) and to have all those tests.
These tests will help doctors get an idea of whether her murmur is important or not. Even when the murmur is the result of a structural abnormality in the heart this isn't necessarily serious; sometimes a hole between the two lower chambers of the heart may be tiny and will close without any treatment as a baby gets older.
Your daughter's irregular heart beat is not the same thing as a heart murmur. The heart usually beats in a regular rhythm, but sometimes this changes and there may be spells when the heart beats extremely quickly or when the rhythm becomes irregular.
The specialist is probably hoping that the 24-hour ECG recording will record an episode during which your daughter's heart rhythm became abnormal so that the exact nature of the 'arrythmia' (the abnormal rhythm) could be discovered.
Again, arrythmias can occur in normal as well as abnormal hearts; you may have experienced a fast or irregular heart beat yourself when you've been anxious, for example.
You are right that every baby should be examined by a doctor within the first day or so after birth to try and detect any physical problems.
This examination includes a careful listen to the heart, but it can be difficult to hear very soft heart murmurs particularly if the baby is crying at the time!
Some heart murmurs are not present in the first day or so after birth, but may develop after a few weeks and this type of murmur will therefore not be picked up when a newborn baby is examined.
I hope this makes things clearer.
The NetDoctor Medical Team