Pre-natal testing for heart defects

Cromwell, Conn. (WTNH) - A study has come to light showing that most pregnant women are not tested for heart defects in their unborn children.

The report was done by Connecticut Little Hearts in Cromwell, raising awareness on congenital heart defects. It also found that most parents did not know their baby had a congenital heart defect until after giving birth. If they had, families like the Busenbarks would have been more prepared.

When 4-year old Andrew Busenbark was born, things couldn't have been more perfect. "When we gave birth to Andrew we thought we had a healthy baby boy," said mom Megan Busenbark.

But 12-hours later, he went into routine vitals and he turned blue. Andrew's parents were blindsided by the diagnosis and it turned out he had a congenital heart defect.

"His situation was so grave, that once they did discover it, they choppered him over to Westchester and performed an immediate life saving procedure on him," said Brian Busenbark, Andrew's father.

After two open heart surgeries at 3-days old, doctors were able to repair the damage so Andrew's heart was able to circulate oxygenated blood.

The Busenbarks were lucky that doctors detected the defect in time. But now there's a push for a national screening test for infants and pregnant women.

"Some hospitals have adopted screening for infants but its not enough," said founder of Little Hearts Lenore Cameron. "We'd like to see this implemented nationwide, just like babies are not discharged until after they get a hearing test."

Cameron is leading the charge because she says the test for babies is a simple check of their oxygen level. "We've been doing this for 14 years," explained Cameron. "We've seen too many babies die...It doesn't have to be this way, not for a procedure thats 100 bucks."

Currently, only pregnant women deemed to be at high risk are monitored closely. "Yes, ideally, earlier diagnosis is certainly helpful and improves the outcome for the babies," said Dr. Felice Heller, a pediatric cardiologist at The Connecticut Children's Medical Center .

However, Heller says pre-natal screening is costly and there are not enough trained personnel to do it. But testing the infant after birth has proven to be fairly accurate. "We were concerned when we started going universal screening of oxygen levels that we would find a lot of babies with lower oxygen levels that would prompt a lot of excessive testing that was unnecessary but it turns out that has not been a problem," explained Dr. Heller.

Meanwhile, the Busenbarks are counting their blessings. "We are so blessed today to have what we have because they found it and they fixed it and now he's doing so well," added mom Megan Busenbark.

Andrew will have to undergo another heart surgery and his lifelong health issues will continued to be monitored closely by cardiologists.