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Fetal Heart Development

What Conditions Can Affect an Unborn Baby's Heart?

By Teri Brown

Hearing your baby's heart for the first time is a never-to-be-forgotten prenatal experience. It's right up there with learning you're pregnant and the first ultrasound pictures of your baby. Of course, that joy is dependent on the health of your baby's heart. Nothing is as terrifying as finding out that all is not right with the most important organ your baby has.

Angela Thomas from Englewood Cliffs, N.J., remembers that feeling all too well. Last year she gave birth to her daughter, Maia, knowing that her daughter had a serious heart problem.

"The problem was detected at the 5-month ultrasound check," Thomas says. "Needless to say, we went through a tailspin especially where doctors mentioned the termination word. Something kept telling me not to terminate and I was vigilant for the remaining months with meditation and outstanding medical care. It was surreal but with faith and wonderful guidance [at] Columbia Medical University, Maia is doing incredible."

Maia was born with a hole in the heart, and she had to have one of her valves detached and re-routed. Thomson's vigilance and care was rewarded. After Maia was delivered, she went right into a very successful surgery.

"I would like other mothers to know there are good stories that exist, and the utmost thing for a mom to do is to remain positive and enjoy her pregnancy and delivery," Thomson says.

"The heart is among the earliest organs to develop, and a primitive version is already beating and pumping blood to the developing fetus by 7 weeks' gestation," Dr. Pearson says. "The early rapid growth of the embryo requires a system of nutrient delivery beyond simple diffusion from one cell to another, so the early development of the heart and blood vessels is a key step."

The formation of an infant's heart begins as a simple tube, which over the next few weeks becomes a four-chambered heart with outflow tracks and venous return. "The heart develops from specialized cells in at least two parts of the early embryo," Dr. Pearson says. "These cells coalesce to become a primitive heart tube, which then expands in certain areas and undergoes a process known as looping to arrive at the final heart structure."

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