Fetal Cardiology Program

There's nothing like hearing your baby's heartbeat for the first time. But for the parents of nearly one out of every 100 babies, their ultrasound will show a congenital heart defect (or CHD, a condition present at birth where the heart's structure is abnormal). We have some of the best children’s heart experts in the country ready to help these families.

About the Fetal Cardiology Program at the Colorado Fetal Care Center

At the Fetal Cardiology Program, we help your family prepare for the arrival of your newest member and  achieve the best possible outcomes (success rates) for them. We bring together expert fetal cardiologists who specialize in detecting neonatal heart defects before babies are born and some of the world’s most qualified and experienced heart specialists to treat patients from birth through adolescence.

As one of the country's top fetal cardiology programs, we have the expertise, technology and multidisciplinary care team your family needs to navigate your baby's diagnosis.

Fetal cardiology support for parents and babies

If your baby has a congenital heart defect or heart rhythm abnormality, our fetal cardiologists are here for you. They’ll help you understand exactly how your baby's heart is developing and support you throughout this difficult time.

Our Fetal Cardiology Program offers comprehensive care for babies with heart and cardiovascular system conditions. We’re fully integrated with our top-ranked Heart Institute, allowing for a seamless transition to ongoing care after your baby is born.

Services offered in our Fetal Cardiology Program

If your baby has a CHD, your pregnancy will require more than routine care before birth. At the Fetal Cardiology Program at the Colorado Fetal Care Center, we offer the most comprehensive high-risk pregnancy management and fetal cardiac care. Our program offers:

• Expert evaluation, diagnosis, counseling and management of fetal heart conditions
• Patient education and care coordination
• Personalized delivery planning to determine the optimal time and method of delivery
• Expert care from maternal fetal medicine specialists, neonatologists, pediatric cardiologists, fetal echocardiography specialists (called sonographers), cardiac intensivists and other clinical specialists by your side, from your first visit and beyond

Fetal heart conditions we treat

Our fetal cardiology program offers comprehensive fetal cardiac diagnosis and treatment for virtually all fetal heart conditions.

What types of heart conditions affect babies?

We classify fetal heart conditions in three main categories:

• Structural heart disease (congenital heart defects or disease)
• Heart muscle diseases (cardiomyopathy)
• Heart rhythm problems (arrhythmia)

The most common heart conditions in babies are structural congenital heart defects. Structural defects involve abnormal development of the fetal heart walls or valves, or the blood vessels that carry blood to and from the heart.

Our fetal cardiology experts

Every family we care for receives support from a team dedicated to the wellbeing of both parents and their baby before, during and after birth. Your maternal, fetal and pediatric cardiology team includes highly specialized nurses, physicians, surgeons, and maternal fetal and neonatal specialists who are truly experts in your child’s condition, along with:

• Fetal cardiologists
• Pediatric heart surgeons
• Pediatric cardiac intensivists
• Cardiac anesthesiologists
• Pediatric electrophysiologists

Our center also offers one-of-a-kind support from genetic counselors, lactation specialists , dietitians and social workers.

What to expect from our Fetal Cardiology Program

During your first visit, you’ll meet with a fetal cardiologist who specializes in congenital heart disease. You'll also receive a fetal echocardiogram, which is a safe, noninvasive ultrasound performed to evaluate your baby's heart and blood vessels.

Then, depending on your child's specific heart problem, the multidisciplinary experts at the Colorado Fetal Care Center will work together to tailor pregnancy, delivery and treatment plans and follow-up care specific to your baby's needs. Because no two heart problems are the same, babies with the same diagnosis might undergo different treatment.

Why choose our Fetal Cardiology Program?

Early diagnosis of neonatal heart defects

By diagnosing a congenital heart defect before birth, we can prepare for any necessary treatment a baby may need immediately after birth, improving outcomes for these newborns. In fact, more than half of our cardiac patients under 1 year old are prenatally diagnosed by our fetal cardiology team.

With state-of-the-art fetal diagnostic capabilities, we can diagnose congenital heart defects at their earliest manifestation – at just 14 weeks gestation. This leaves our fetal experts up to 26 weeks to optimize each baby's health by designing the best treatment and delivery plans.

A continuum of cardiac care under one roof

When it comes to neonatal heart defects, we offer the most comprehensive continuum of cardiac care. Here, our pediatric and fetal cardiologists and surgeons are uniquely qualified to help babies with heart conditions. Our experts diagnose CHDs before birth, deliver babies in our specially designed Labor and Delivery Unit, perform any necessary cardiac interventions after birth and then care for kids as they heal and grow.

Our integrative care model helps make the transition to our Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU) as seamless as possible, and lets us delivers these babies into the capable hands of the Heart Institute pediatric specialists required in any future care. Our CICU provides state-of-the-art recovery and monitoring for acutely-ill babies and those recovering from heart surgery.

Access to the cardiac experts at the Heart Institute

Our Fetal Cardiology Program is fully integrated with the nationally-ranked pediatric cardiac care at our Heart Institute. Parents and babies benefit from the expertise, innovative research, scope and unparalleled capabilities of the Heart Institute, such as:

• More than 20 specialized heart programs for all types of congenital and acquired heart and arrhythmia conditions
• Programs that embody our family and patient-focused approach to care, such as the Developmental Feeding Program
• Full integration with the Complex Congenital Heart Disease and Development Clinic, a specialized follow-up clinic for babies born with complex CHD who will need a series of surgeries to improve cardiac circulation and help them thrive and grow
• A team dedicated to easing the burden of a CHD diagnosis with concierge-style cardiac care and tools like the Guided Question Tool: Questions to Ask Your Cardiologist that empowers parents by giving them the information they need to make informed care decisions during this difficult time
• Some of the best patient outcomes of any pediatric hospital in the nation

Transitioning from the Colorado Fetal Care Center to the Heart Institute

Our continuum of care continues as babies with CHD grow. After delivery, babies diagnosed with a congenital heart abnormality go to our nationally ranked Heart Institute, where we are equipped to care for them through infancy, childhood, adolescence and beyond. Our multidisciplinary team will design an individualized, ongoing plan for your baby, and cardiac specialists at both the inpatient and outpatient Pediatric Cardiology Clinic will manage your child's congenital heart disease.

Learn about your visit to the Heart Institute, where you will find important information to make your time here easier.

Innovative fetal heart research

Our fetal cardiology team, together with maternal, perinatal and neonatal experts, continually strives to improve patient outcomes and advance the science of fetal cardiology. Our research includes primary fetal cardiac issues, as well as other medical concerns that impact the fetal cardiovascular system. We are the leader in several national and international multicenter studies and a participating center in several others.

Through our groundbreaking research efforts, we are gaining insight into the causes of fetal cardiac conditions and helping bring the most advanced treatments to our patients sooner.

As the only center in the Rocky Mountain region participating in Mayo Clinic's Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS) Consortium, we are leading the way to find solutions for patients with HLHS, a complex form of congenital heart disease. Through our Program, pregnant parents whose babies are diagnosed with HLHS have the opportunity to participate in groundbreaking clinical trials studying the use of cell-based regenerative therapy to transform the lives of children born with HLHS.

Visit our fetal care center

Learn more about what to expect during your first visit to our fetal care Center, and take a tour of our unique facility.