Review Article
Year: 2018 | Month: October-December | Volume: 3 | Issue: 4 | Pages: 172-179
Nutritional Challenges in Pediatric Congenital Cardiac Care
Anuradha1, Dr. Manoj Kumar Sahu2, Dr. Bipin C3, Dr Geeta Trilok Kumar4
1Ph. D. Scholar, Institute of Home Economics, Hauz Khas, University of Delhi
2Associate Professor, Intensive Care CTVS, Department of CTVS, 7th floor, CN Centre, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, 110029
3Senior Resident, DM Cardiac Surgical Intensive Care, Intensive Care CTVS, Department of CTVS, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi 110029
4Director, Institute of Home Economics, Hauz Khas, University of Delhi
Corresponding Author: Dr. Manoj Kumar Sahu
ABSTRACT
It is well documented that malnutrition significantly contributes to morbidity in children with congenital heart disease (CHD), which is influenced by type of cardiac lesion, malabsorption, hypermetabolism and poor nutrient intake. Most of the congenital heart diseases are present at birth but diagnosed and treated late due to poor resource availability in developing countries. Children with congenital heart defects may experience poor weight gain and linear growth due to several factors like increased work of breathing, increased energy demand, at the same time decreased overall calorie intake. These children need caloric supplementation before and after surgical/medical management of their cardiac condition to achieve catch up growth. So with improved supplementation of calorie, protein and side by side treating their heart failure medically and correcting their pathology surgically would be the holistic approach to deal with the situation. There are lacunae of randomised controlled trials to specify the nutritional need and feeding protocol about how to initiate and advance enteral feeding among these infants, so it is important to understand the challenges to fulfil their nutritional requirements. The purpose of this review is to discuss the nutritional challenges during preoperative and postoperative period, initiation of enteral feeding and current feeding practices among these children.
Keywords: Congenital heart disease, nutrition, feeding protocol