Nutritional Counseling for Improving the Health Status of Children Suffer from Congenital Heart Disease

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Malnutrition is a condition that results from eating a diet which does not supply a healthy amount of one or more nutrients. This health problem iscommon in children suffer from congenital heart disease.

AIM OF THE STUDY:we aimed to investigate the efficacy nutritional counseling and support in improving the health statusof those children..

SUBJECTS ANDMETHODS: 42 children of CHD with undernutrition 19 had cyanotic CHD, 13 had heart failure and 16 had pulmonary hypertension were included in our study. Medical history, clinical examination, cardiology, and echocardiographic assessment were performed and all patients followed a Nutritional Plan. Follow up for all patients was conductedEvery 2 weeks and after 2 months the patients were re-evaluated.

RESULTS:Only 6 infants (14.3%) of our cases had unimproved from failure to thrive 2 months after nutritional intervention.Failure to thrive (unimproved) group was significantly associated with developmental problems but there was no significant difference regard age or sex or duration of developmental problems.There was significant association between cyanotic CHD and failure to thrive with no other significant association with other parameters

CONCLUSION: In children with CHD, malnutrition is a grave issue. Nutritional evaluation and adequate therapy help boost their nutritional status.