Let Afi and ZoZo tell you about PDA

That was a lot. Let's break it down...

PDAs are like two-way traffic on a highway. On a highway and in the heart, we have cars (blood) going one way, to the body, and cars (blood) going another way, to the lungs. With a PDA, there is a hole in the wall separating the two lanes that is supposed to close by itself a few months after you are born. Sometimes it doesn’t close. Some cars that were supposed to be going one way, to the body, are now going back where they came from, the lungs. There are now more cars going to the lungs than there was supposed to be, which creates traffic. This creates a lot of strain on the heart and on the highway! Sometimes, construction workers or doctors need to come in to fix the whole in the block to decrease the pressure!

How your heart tells you it needs a little extra help:

1. You may feel that your heart beats super fast

2. You might have trouble breathing or you might get out of breath more often than your friends and siblings.

3. You might notice you don’t get as hungry as usual.

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Check out what our friends at the American Heart Association and healthychildren.org have to say about PDAs !