I googled how many babies are born in a day.First in the U.S. I checked a few different websites but got the same answer. So, how many babies? There are 10,829! That’s in 1 day in the U.S. alone. (Website) Close to 11 babies born in the U.S. are born with a CHD. I wanted to go further than that so I googled How many babies were born every day in the world. Again I checked a few different sites and they all had roughly the same number. Approximately 360,000 babies are born throughout the world in a single day. Now if I did my math right (which I might not have) that means that approximately 3,600 babies are born throughout the world in a single day with a CHD. (Website) Congenital heart defects is the number one birth defect around the world. It is also the cause of the most infant deaths in the US. (Website)
When we were expecting our little girl, I talked to my doctor and told her about our niece who has a CHD. Because I expressed concern early my doctor paid very close attention to our little girls heart, she even set us up for an ultra sound that focused on our little girls heart in detail. We got to see all four of her chambers and watch the flow of blood through her heart. It was amazing. Then when she was finally born, we took another precaution and asked for them to add the pulse ox test to the number of things they were doing to her. It use to be that this very simple test had to be asked for or else it never got done, because of that there were CHD's that went undetected. Because of some brave Mommy's of CHD survivors and CHD angels, laws are being passed all over the U.S that pulse ox tests are routine when welcoming a newborn into the world. Utah is one of these states. Thank goodness. I have talked about pulse ox before, in fact I mention it every year we do CHD, this was mainly because of the new parents needing to ask for this test to be performed on their babies. I am not saying that it still shouldn't be asked for. I would definitely still ask just to make sure, if its part of the hospital routine now or not, always ask. Better safe than sorry. This test is very simple and painless. These pictures are of our little girl having her pulse ox test done. It's a light that is either placed on the hand or the foot. It monitors that flow of blood and can detect any murmurs that the heart could have. If you or anyone you know is going to have a baby soon, make sure to talk to them about asking about the pulse ox test. 
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