Patient
Information
Murmurs in Children and Adolescents
Doctors
use the term "heart murmur" to refer to almost any sound
the heart makes when pumping the blood.
Although people think of heart murmurs as a problem, most
heart murmurs in children are completely normal, and are only the
usual sound of blood flowing through a normal heart. Normal heart murmurs, also known as "innocent
murmurs" or "functional murmurs", occur in about
40% of children, and tend to come and go throughout childhood.
General pediatricians and family practitioners have a lot
of experience with these sorts of murmurs.
Examples include the innocent Still's
murmur, innocent PPS murmur and innocent venous hum.
On
the other side of the coin, about 1% of all children actually do
have heart abnormalities. Most of these abnormalities are quite minor, but some are
serious. When a
physician caring for a child hears a heart murmur, and they are
not sure whether it is an innocent murmur or not, they often refer
the family to a pediatric cardiologist (children's heart
specialist). The
pediatric cardiologist can often tell if a murmur is innocent just
by listening, or may perform one or more tests to sort things out.
In my pediatric cardiology practice, most children sent to
me because of a heart murmur have innocent murmurs (nothing wrong
with them), about a quarter have minor heart abnormalities, and
fewer than 5% have a serious heart condition.
Web
Links
Here are some Internet links that might be helpful. They look pretty good, but I cannot vouch for their
accuracy or quality. As
always with the Internet, browser beware!
American
Heart Association: Innocent Murmurs
http://www.americanheart.org/Heart_and_Stroke_A_Z_Guide/imurm.html
American
Academy of Family Physicians - Heart Murmurs in Children--What
Parents Should Know
http://www.aafp.org/afp/990800ap/990800f.html
Pennsylvania Children's Hospital:
Heart Murmurs
iVillage:
Are Infant Heart Murmurs Common?
http://www.homearts.com/depts/health/38docs31.htm
The
Nemours Foundation: Heart
Murmurs
http://kidshealth.org/parent/medical/heart/murmurs.html
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