Yale New Haven Children's Heart Center offers comprehensive medical, interventional and surgical treatments of pediatric cardiac conditions including heart murmurs, congenital heart disease, atrial and ventricular septal defects (hole in heart), congestive heart disease and heart failure. Treatment is provided to newborns, children and adults. Our compassionate team is highly skilled to meet the unique needs of our patients. The team consists of pediatric cardiologists, cardiac surgeons, neonatologists, cardiac anesthesiologists, critical care physicians, advanced practice and registered nurses. Together they provide a customized care plan for each patient.
Our pediatric cardiologists and cardiac surgeons are leading experts and innovators in many areas including fetal cardiology, echocardiography, therapeutic cardiac catheterization procedures, heart rhythm disorders, cardiomyopathy, cardiogenetics and adult congenital heart disease. In fact, the Children's Heart Center is the first and only program in Connecticut to offer transcatheter pulmonary heart valve replacement procedure, a non-surgical alternative to open-heart surgery. We are proud to be certified by UNOS to offer pediatric heart transplant and a mechanical cardiac assist device program. By delivering expert evaluation, management and treatment at one location, our Children’s Heart Center offers children and their family’s access to a full range of medical and surgical care for heart failure closer to home.
This multidisciplinary program encompasses the full spectrum of care and provides continuity for adults living with congenital heart disease.
The Children’s Heart Center performs more than 300 congenital cardiac MRI and CT scans annually to diagnose and monitor acquired and congenital heart conditions. State-of-the-art equipment along with expert technique obtain accurate imaging of heart structure and function. Highly specialized nuclear medicine studies may also be performed to help diagnose patients with more complex heart disease, including coronary defects that are present at birth known as congenital coronary abnormalities.
Our Aortopathy Program team monitors and cares for infants, children and teenagers with bicuspid aortic valve disease, which is when two of the leaflets of the aortic valve fuse together during development in the womb. Aortic enlargement and other connective tissue disorders are also monitored through this program. Providers work with cardiac imaging, genetic counseling and testing, and interventionists to evaluate and create a custom treatment plan for each patient.
Our team has dedicated and highly skilled pediatric anesthesiologists and perfusionists that specialize in supporting the pediatric cardiac patient. They have special training that provides for the safest care and most positive outcomes during your child’s surgical procedure.
Pediatric cardiologists, respiratory therapists, physical therapists, and occupational therapist work together with the goal of the best outcomes for patients after treatment for heart and lung injury, disease or malformation. This includes a patient specific supervised program of exercise, support, education, and individual counseling.
Experts in pediatric and adult cardiology, along with genetics, evaluate and treat families with genetic heart conditions. The team employs cutting edge research and evaluation techniques to provide specialized treatments for management of children and entire families that may have genetic conditions affecting their heart.
Our multidisciplinary team comprised of cardiothoracic surgeons, pediatric surgeons, pain specialists, anesthesiologists, nurse practitioners and physical therapists offer evaluation and treatment for patients with simple and complex chest wall deformities such as pectus excavatum or pectus carinatum. Each patient is provided with a coordinated individualized care plan.
The Pediatric Echocardiography Laboratory provides state-of-the-art, non-invasive assessments of cardiac anatomy and physiology in an environment specially designed with children and their families in mind.
The Echocardiography Lab, accredited by the Intersocietal Accreditation Commission, performs more than 6,000 studies annually, including fetal imaging, 3D imaging and intra-cardiac approaches. Pediatric cardiologists and pediatric cardiac sonographers collaborate to provide the highest quality and safest care to our patients.
We offer a highly trained team that will help provide certain exercises, like running on a treadmill to assist in assessing how your heart functions and how it will respond in certain situations, like physical activity. During some tests, you are connected to an electrocardiogram machine so your physician can monitor your heart rate and response.
Pediatric cardiologists perform fetal echocardiograms and consultations for patients whose pregnancy may be affected by congenital heart disease or arrhythmia.
Our fetal cardiologists are part of a multidisciplinary team at our Fetal Care Center including physicians from maternal-fetal medicine, and pediatric cardiothoracic surgery, as well as social work and genetic counselors. This special team will help identify causes and treatments of your baby before they are born and understand how it may impact you and your family.
Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital’s team of Yale Medicine interventional cardiologists perform cardiac catheterizations on patients from childhood through to adulthood with congenital heart disease.
Along with performing procedures such as closures of atrial septal defect, patent foramen ovale and patent ductus arteriosus, we are the only program in the state that offers minimally invasive cardiac catheterization for premature infants.
The lab is the first and only congenital cardiac catheterization laboratory in Connecticut to offer transcatheter pulmonary valve replacements, including the Melody and Edwards valves.
Our team has expertise in nonsurgical transcatheter treatment of aortic and pulmonary valve stenosis, coarctation of the aorta, intravascular stent placement for narrowed arteries and vessels and blood vessel coil occlusion. Our interventional team also works collaboratively with our pediatric cardiothoracic surgeons to deliver the most innovative hybrid procedures.
Yale New Haven Children's Hospital is equipped with a dedicated 24/7 pediatric cardiac intensive care unit (PCICU), the state's only pediatric catheterization lab and pediatric cardiac operating room.
The pediatric cardiac intensive care unit is a six-bed designated unit within Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital. This unit is the only dedicated pediatric cardiac ICU in the state of Connecticut, providing cutting edge therapies for children with cardiac concerns. Our pediatric cardiac critical care team follows an innovative clinical model, referred to as an "adaptive care model". This model provides continuity of care by allowing our same team of cardiologists, advanced practice providers and specially trained cardiac nurses to care for your child throughout their stay until the time of discharge. This skilled team specializes in a variety of treatment options to care for patients with congenital heart defects and other cardiac anomalies requiring intervention.
Cardiologists with specific training in electrophysiology help identify, monitor and treat pediatric patients and adults with congenital heart disease who have heart rhythm concerns or abnormalities. This comprehensive program offers a wide array of diagnostic and treatment options including:
The program also includes an Inherited Arrhythmia Program, during which our providers evaluate and treat inherited arrhythmia conditions such as channelopathies and cardiomyopathies.
Learn more about Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital’s Pediatric Congenital Electrophysiology
Surgeons at Yale New Haven Children's Hospital used a minimally invasive procedure to find and correct a congenital defect in the heart of a newborn.
