Advanced Deliveries

Delivery Planning for Fetal Heart Problems

It can be frightening to learn that your child has a congenital heart defect. But these are relatively common, affecting almost 1 in every 100 newborns in the United States. Advances in medical knowledge and diagnostic technologies can now provide very detailed information regarding your child’s structural heart abnormalities. This allows for our team to make the best recommendation for delivery location.

If your baby is born with a congenital heart defect, they may require immediate medical assistance after delivery. At the SSM Health Cardinal Glennon St. Louis Fetal Care Institute, our Fetal Heart Program has the maternal fetal medicine and pediatric experts you need to provide a delivery care plan your baby requires to transition from the womb to the outside world. Most babies can be safely delivered at SSM Health St. Mary's Hospital - St. Louis.

IMPACT Delivery

For babies with the highest risk heart lesions, an immediate access to postpartum cardiac therapies (IMPACT) delivery may be needed. This allows for cardiac treatment immediately after separation from placental circulation. If an IMPACT delivery is needed, delivery may be planned at SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital, where your baby is next door to the pediatric operating room and the pediatric hybrid cardiac catheterization suite. This state-of-the-art suite allows SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital's heart experts to conduct advanced diagnostic procedures and fix complex heart problems, in the same room and in one procedure, for safer care and a faster recovery.