Supporting Research to Advance the Diagnoses, Treatment, and Cure of Heart Defects and Diseases in Children
Children's Heart Research Guild
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Twice as many children die from heart defects and diseases than from all childhood cancers combined.
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Children are susceptible to acquiring life threatening heart diseases at any time in childhood.
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Defects of the heart are the number one killer of children under the age of one.
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One in 100 babies are born with heart defects and diseases and one in 200 require medical intervention.
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Heart defects and diseases are not all diagnosed at birth many being diagnosed later in childhood or due to sudden cardiac death as young athletes.
Click Here to remember our children lost to heart disease and defects.
Children’s Heart Research Guild was established in 2008 by parents of children with heart defects and diseases. We discovered that while heart disease and defects are the leading cause of death in children under the age of one and occur in one out of every 100 births, research for these conditions is woefully under-funded (7th in funding in childhood diseases). As parents, we can join together to change this and help bring forth better outcomes for our kids.
While there are a few small organizations raising money specifically for pediatric heart research, most fund projects on the East Coast. Our group wanted to keep the funding local to the Seattle area so we would have a voice in how the funds were used and to have the ability to influence the direction of the research. We also wanted the ability to get to know the researchers and have them get to know our kids.
100% of the funds netted from events and fundraising will go to Children's Research Institute (CRI), the research arm of Children's Hospital in Seattle, Washington. CRI has significant collaborations with the University of Washington and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. CRI's motto is to have "bench to bedside" research, that is to develop applications that can quickly be applied to patient care. To Learn more about CRI, click here.
To learn more about the pediatric heart research programs currently underway at CRI and through Children's Hospital, click here.
If you live in the Pacific Northwest and are parents of a child with heart disease or defects and are looking for a support network, contact the Heart to Heart support group. Please contact Josephine Young, MD, a pediatrician and mom of a child with a complex congenital heart defect at heartmom1204@yahoo.com, or call 425-827-4600.