Sunday will mark the beginning of Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week which will run from February 7th, to Valentines day, which I find fitting considering valentines day is always represented with hearts. It makes it easier to remember, don’t ya think?
But the reason I am taking the time to post about this because most do not know that CHD, short for Congenital Heart Defect, is the #1 birth defect in the United States. It is estimated that 25,000 babies are born with CHD every year, and that works out to 1 out of every 115-150 births. Another shocking number is, 10,830 babies are born daily in the US, meaning around 411 of them will be born with some form of CHD.
I didn’t really know much about CHD until I got on twitter in January and really got involved. I noticed lots of people that I already followed talking about CHD and Cora’s Story. So I set out to learn more about Cora and her story, and that is when I met her mother Kristine Brite.
Cora was born with an undetected CHD and passed away on December 6th 2009 while breastfeeding in her mothers arms.
Since the loss of Cora, Kristine, her mother has been struggling with losing a child, but becoming an activist for CHD and mandatory pulse oximetry testing on all newborns, which tests for CHD, hopefully helping prevent CHD from going unnoticed or undetected in any more babies.
