Heart Murmur

[Karasmummy]

Hi all,
My little girl is 10 weeks old and after a visit to the paediatrician for suspected milk allergy, we were told she has a heart murmur and we need to go back in March for a review of it.
I got a copy of a letter sent to my health visitor, and it says she has a 2/6 mid systolic murmur localised to the left sternal edge.
Does anyone know anything about this?
Should we be worried?
I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes while pregnant but have since been told I'm still diabetic and the chances are I had it before I was pregnant, so I'm worried as untreated diabetes can cause heart defects in the unborn baby.
Any info or advice would be great as I'm freaking out!!
I daren't google it as it will probably make me more worried!!

Ds has a heart murmur as the result of a congenital defect, we have only just found it at 2.6, the cardiologist just wants it monitored at present.

Has your dd had a scan ( like an ultrasound) of her heart?

( You may want to ask MNHQ to move this to children's health.)

I got diagnosed with a heart murmur last year the gp thinks I have had it all my life, my heart murmur is entirely innocent, I hope your dd's is too, am sure alot of babies heart murmurs resolve as they grow. they may give your dd an echo to check it but this is just a scan of the heart x

Hi

My DD2 has a heart murmur which was picked up at about 3 weeks. She has had scans and Ecg or whatever the word is in English, and we have been told they'll keep an eye on it but that it should sort itself out over time. It's just a valve which isn't closing properly, but when she was checked at 15 weeks it was already starting to sound better.

My gardfather lived ot his mid 80s, a very active life, with a heart murmur that was picked up when he was a teen.

If they were worried they'd be doing more. Lots of newborns have them, and most sort themselves out. If they don't sort themselves out there are lots of options. Don't worry.

i have a heart murmur, was born with a condition called svt which causes it. it's not serious and really has been nothing to worry about since it was diagnosed (i'm 42 btw).

all it means for me, is my heart squeaks when it beats

So the description of the heart murmur

2/6 New York Heart Score 1 being the quietest heard some of the time 6 being the loudest thrill present heard with the sethoscope off the chest wall. So 2 is there all the time, but is quieter than the heart sounds.
Systolic it is only heard whilst the heart is contracting. Often this is broken down in to holosystolic and Pansystolic.
Localising to left sternal border tells you where the murmur is loudest (point of maximal intensity) indicates most likely type of murmur - I am a vet so our anatomical points are not the same.
Diabetes is very unlikely to be the cause, heart defects causing murmurs are likely to come from gene encodations this code be either from a carried defect or a mutation. The most likely thing is a mutation which just happens and you have not control over.
Many, many people have murmurs that are there, but never cause a problem - nonfunctional murmurs. As Hazey says you should see a cardiologist who well diagnose fully and give you a prognosis.

My lad was diagnosed with heart problems in utero, was on NICU immediately post birth and was monitored closely for his 1st year. Now, at 21mo, you wouldn't know there was owt wrong with him. I also have a heart murmur, picked up in my 20's which has never caused me any real problems. It will most likely fade over time or give your baby no problems, but at least they're keeping an eye on it.

I had a heart murmur as a child. From recollection, I think it was diagnosed when I went through a stage of fainting - think the two were disconnected but that is how it was found. It has never caused me any problems whatsoever. Like your daughter, mine was also 2/6.

I believe that in terms of severity, 1 is the most minor (being barely noticeable with a doctor listening carefully) and 6 is the clearest (being easily audible).

I went to the doctors a few months ago as I had been feeling unwell and she listened to my heart and noticed the heart murmur then. As I was planning children in the future, she decided to send me for some tests, as pregnancy can obviously put strain on the heart - I had an ECG and a ................... can't remember the name but basically an ultrasound of the heart. The ECG showed up the murmur but the scan showed my heart was fine. They may well do these tests with your daughter too in due course but I understand that murmurs are fairly common in children.

I wouldn't worry about the murmur, I was told that many people have them and they are generally harmless.

thanks for the quick replies everyone, seems to be very common so that puts my mind at ease, and judging by how she can scream there can't be too much wrong lol.

Heart murmurs are noises caused by turbulent flow of blood in the heart.

Sometimes that noise is just due to fast blood flow through a small but perfectly normal heart - this is a flow murmur or an innocent murmur and is nothing whatsoever to worry about. Very occasionally murmurs are due to the way the heart has been built, most commonly a small hole between the chambers, sometimes a leaky or stiff valve and occasionally the heart not being the right shape. A lot of the small holes fix themselves over time.

Children who have a problem with the heart that is actually making them unwell will have more symptoms than just the murmur - they will often not be putting weight on well, will get breathless when they feed and may look grey or dusky. Children who are thriving but have a murmur usually have either an innocent murmur or a small hole which just needs an eye kept on it.

If the murmur is an innocent one it may have gone away completely by March so can be forgotten about. If it's still there they will arrange an echo scan (an ultrasound) and that will show the structure of the heart and how blood flows through the valves and chambers.

How they have described the murmur is just doctor code - murmurs are graded 1-6 based on volume, 1 being so quiet it is only audiable by an expert, 6 being very loud. Mid systolic means where in the heart cycle the murmur happens - systole is when the heart is squeezing blood out - so you can hear the whoosh inbetween the first and second heart sound (so lub-whoosh-dub) and almost all murmurs in children are systolic. Localised to the left sternal edge means she can only hear it with her stethoscope to the left of the breastbone - often murmurs which signify something wrong with how the heart is built can be heard all over the chest so a murmur being only audible in one place makes it a bit more likely that it's an innocent/insignificant one.

My friends DD has a heart murmur. She is 17, and it has never caused her a problem. In fact, she's particularly healthy - hardly ever ill.

My nephew had a heart murmur detected at 8 weeks old (at his first gp check before immunisations I think). The GP said it was most likely due to a hole in the heart. At the time all the family were worried and he had to wait for a scan at 6-7 months to see if the hole had closed up. He had the scan and the hole had closed, he didn't have a heart murmur anymore. I'm not sure if it's the same sort of thing your daughter has but from talking to people at the time, this seems to be a fairly common thing with newborns.

He was fine (always has been), good colour and was thriving well. From what I read at the time, they tend to worry when a baby is not thriving, turning blue, struggling to breath as this indicates a more serious problem etc.

Good luck to you and your daughter.

Again thanks everyone, am feeling a lot better about it now. I have never really had much to do with babies and kids, so didn't realise how common it was. As some of you have said other than sometimes being a bit blue around her mouth (which could just be wind) she has no symptoms, so probably just an innocent murmur, fingers crossed.

Karasmummy - my daughter (now 12) was diagnosed with a heart murmur at 6 weeks. To be honest I was terrified. 'Heart' anything sounds so scary and as I suspect you are doing, I blamed myself. My daughter was seen by paediatrician and the paeds cardiologist, had an echo and an ECG. She was diagnosed with mild pulmonary stenosis - her pulmonary valve is narrowed and the turbulence in the blood this causes makes the sound of the murmur. She has always been entirely well and is only followed up now every few years. She has never required any intervention. When she was young she occasionally had the blueness round the mouth - usually in cold weather. I took her to the GP and asked the cardiologist about and the consensus was that it didn't signify anything. I almost forget she has a murmur now. Almost but not quite I will never forget though how scared I was when the doctor first said he could hear something. Nothing logical or sensible about it, just pure fear.
1 in 100 children has a congenital heart defect and the vast majority of those will not be 'serious'. Even for the really serious defects (which your daughter doesn't have, we can be quite sure about that) which cause major problems from birth, there are surgical options and good treatments. The problem Due mentions is called a VSD and I believe that's the most common cause of murmurs in babies that aren't 'innocent'. It will fix itself. Then comes pulmonary stenosis which probably won't fix itself but is unlikely to be a major issue. Dd is at greater risk of an infection on that valve so has been advised not to have her ears pierced or get tattoos. We can live with that.

Do NOT google. Look at the baby in front of you. She's fine. She just has a heart that makes an additional noise.

Hi karasmummy,

Exact same thing happened to me and my ds, thought he had milk allergy, lots of diarrhoea and poor weight gain, picked up heart murmur at about 13 weeks then ecg confirmed a hole in the heart.

Unfortunately this hole is large and hasnt closed and may not, he is monitored every 6 months and so far so good, he is growing well and heart is working as it should be.

Try not to Google as northernlurker says, it will drive you to despair. I'm guessing you will see a paediatric cardiologist who will talk you through whatever they find outnin more detail.

Hope all works out well for you and dd

DD had a heart murmur at birth, and grew out of it by her follow up at 5 weeks.