Nutritional status among children with congenital heart diseases at Al-Diwaniya province.

Background: Congenital Heart Disease (CHD) is a disease that may have an effect on the growth of children and may result in under nutrition. The rapid growth of children during the first few years and the highest nutritional requirements make children at high risk as they are considered a critical period for future developmental ability. Aim of the study: To demonstrate the real impact of congenital heart disease on children nutritional status. Patients and methods: All children involved in this study were diagnosed with congenital heart disease and were symptomatic, they were 48 patients, their age (1-18 months), and the study was performed during their preoperative period. The studies conducted from the first of March 2019 to the 30 of November 2019 at AL-Diwaniya city were seeking medical advice at the outpatient clinic. History, complete physical examination, investigations (blood investigations, chest X-ray, ECG, echocardiogram) were performed for all. Growth centiles for weight and height were measured for all of them. Wellcome classification were used to evaluate their nutritional status while waterlow classification we used it to demonstrate the stages of acute and chronic malnutrition. Results: Male to female ratio was 2:1 (32 males, 16 females), 26 presented with cyanotic CHD while 22 were with non-cyanotic defects. When we evaluated patients for severe childhood under nutrition, the severely acute malnutrition ratio with wasting was 66.6% while chronic malnutrition according to growth stunting was 83.3%. Out of 48 patients, 33.3% (n=16) were diagnosed with non-odematous SCU by Well come classification, 48.8% (n=22) were underweight, none had odematous form of SCU and 20.8% (n=10) were normal.