Tiny Tickers raising awareness of early heart defects detection

If you remember last year I was sharing Tiny Tickers posts and as the cause is close to my heart I'm sharing it with you again this year.

"National Heart Month is in February and we at Tiny Tickers, the baby hearts charity, are asking you to support Heart Week between 7th - 14th February 2016. Heart Week is a chance to join together 

to help babies born with serious heart conditions by raising vital funds and awareness.
             
Tiny Tickers is a small national charity that aims to improve the detection, care and treatment of congenital heart disease (CHD) in babies. Tiny Tickers provides specialist training to health professionals and sonographers so they are better equipped to identify a heart defect during a pregnancy scan. We support parents and families dealing with a diagnosis, and we raise awareness
of heart defects in babies so that parents know what signs to look out for.

When heart problems are detected during pregnancy, babies get treatment from the first possible moment- and early detection is shown to greatly improve their chance of survival and long-term quality of life, and lowers the risk of side-effects of heart failure such as brain damage.

Heart Week will help raise vital funds and awareness for the 1,000 babies who are sent home from hospitals every year with an undetected heart condition. 

Martha’s condition was thankfully picked up during pregnancy. Her story perfectly explains how lifesaving early detection can be. Meet Martha here. 

                          
If you are worried your baby is one of these 1,000, these are the 5 signs that will help you protect your baby.
Think HEART points to a range of symptoms that, although non-specific, may be signs of an underlying heart defect - reducing oxygenated blood flow and needing urgent attention:

• Heart rate: too fast or slow? (normally 100 to 160 beats per minute)
• Energy & Feeding: sleepy, quiet, floppy, too tired to feed or falling asleep during feeds?
• Appearance: a pale, waxy, dusky, blue, purple, mottled or grey colour may mean that not enough oxygenated, red blood is getting to the body (normal oxygen saturations are 95-100%)
• Respiration: breathing too fast or slow? (normally 40-60 breaths per minute)
• Temperature: cold to touch - particularly hands and feet?

To get your free Heart Week pack, including your Love Hearts 'Guess the Number of Sweets' game, REGISTER HERE.

Tiny Tickers- let's raise awareness of early heart defects detection

Couple of weeks a go I was contacted by the Tiny Tickers charity representative who asked me to help spread the word about them.

As a person who had mitral valve prolapse I understand how important it is to be aware and treat the illness at the right time. 

"The condition I had is deemed to be the most common heart valve abnormality having said that as many as 1 in every 125 babies in the UK has a congenital heart defect. Only one third of major heart defects are spotted during pregnancy, and another third are picked up in standard newborn hospital tests.

Terrifyingly, that means around 1,000 newborns are sent home from hospital every year in the UK with no one realising they are suffering a life-threatening condition.

Tiny Tickers is a small national charity that aims to improve the detection, care and treatment of congenital heart disease (CHD) in babies. 

Tiny Tickers provides specialist training to health professionals and sonographers so they are better equipped to identify a heart defect during a pregnancy scan. We support parents and families dealing with a diagnosis, and we raise awareness of heart defects in babies so that parents know what signs to look out for.

When CHD is detected during pregnancy, babies get treatment from the first possible moment – and early detection is shown to greatly improve their chance of survival and long-term quality of life, and lowers the risk of side-effects of heart failure such as brain damage.

Here is how you can help

To get your free Big Tick info card, order here!

Read about Robbie's story here".

Pregnancy update 20 weeks

Visible changes in my body: I think I have more obvious bump; one day I think I can see bump, the other day I can't see it)

Other changes: I can't fall asleep straight away like I did before, it feels like it takes me ages; more uncomfortable to lie on my side; have more ligament pains and back pains (by more I mean when I stand up or when walk on a treadmill, or sit awkwardly); and the most important I feel my baby, for the past few weeks I didn't know if it's a baby or gas, but now I know it's my little L)

How do I feel: headaches are gone (touch wood); feeling less sick in the evenings; also still have increased sense of smell, but its not so bad any more comparing to what it was before; feel tired quicker.

Cravings: still none

Fitness: before I was pregnant I tried to do a bit of running on a treadmill at home, at the beginning of pregnancy I started walking instead of running and still try to do walking everyday for 20-25 minutes, plus we started going to a swimming pool once a week.

Baby: At 20 weeks baby is about 25cm long, and weighs about 340g. Baby is becoming very active inside a womb, s\he can step, hold him\herself erect and even grab and squeeze the umbilical cord. From around now there will be slight differences in baby’s activity between morning and night with the busiest being around midnight.

Gender: We had our 20 weeks scan on Monday, baby is perfectly fine! And we are having a girl!!

It was a huge shock for us, if you read my blog from the very beginning you know that we wanted and tried to follow old wives tales and Shettles method to conceive a boy, after doing everything the right way we were 99% sure it's a boy. How naïve we were and how shocking it was to know it's a girl, I don't even know what to do with a girl!) I know that we should of considered both options, but we were totally obsessed with an idea of having a boy! I had a good cry, spoke with my mum and it helped, I am ready to welcome and to enjoy having our little girl! Yesterday I felt so sorry for her that we were upset, I love this baby already and don't want her to feel that mummy and daddy are not happy or didn't want her, it's not true, we wanted this baby, we planned it, and I know we will adjust to an idea of us being team pink!