Keeping kids healthy can be a big job. From the day their children are born, parents ferry them to and from medical offices, getting their immune systems boosted, teeth cleaned, eyes checked and stuffy noses decongested. But experts say there’s one body part parents and health care professionals may be overlooking: the heart.
“As a pediatrician, I am very concerned there is not enough attention to the growing problem of cardiovascular disease risks in children and youth,” said Dr. Mona Sharifi, chief of general pediatrics at the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut. “We need to think about keeping their hearts healthy.
” Heart disease and stroke are typically considered adult problems. But a growing body of research links cardiovascular events that occur in midlife to risk factors – such as obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and smoking – that begin developing decades earlier, in childhood. Some conditions, such as high blood pressure, are even showing up in childhood and adolescence.
As a result, health experts recommend greater monitoring of children’s cardiovascular risks and earlier interventions to control them as they emerge. “Ideally, parents should think about their child’s heart health even before their child is born,” said Dr. Amy Peterson, a professor of pediatrics in the department of pediatric cardiology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
Studies show mom’s health during pregnancy can affect her child’s ca.
