Founders and Advisory Board

Legislation affecting Congenital Heart Defects

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention website , "One of every 33 babies is born with a birth defect. A birth defect can affect almost any part of the body. The well being of the child depends mostly on which organ or body part is involved and how much it is affected. "

"Within 48 hours of a child's birth, a sample of blood is obtained from a "heel stick," and the blood is analyzed for (up to) 35 treatable diseases (depends on the state), including phenylketonuria, sickle cell disease, and hypothyroidism".

"Each year, at least 4 million babies in the United States are tested for these diseases, and severe disorders are detected in about 3,000 newborns." This means one of every 1,300 babies tests positive for one of these diseases .

"Many birth defects affect the heart. About 1 in every 100 babies is born with a heart defect. Heart defects make up about one-third to one-fourth of all birth defects . Some of these heart defects can be serious, and a few are very severe. In some places of the world, heart defects cause half of all deaths from birth defects in children less than 1 year of age. "

Imagine how many newborn children could be helped with a NON-INVASIVE oxygen saturation level test!

Here are excerpts from articles on the American Acadamy of Pediatrics website :

PEDIATRICS Vol. 106 No. 2 Supplement August 2000, pp. 389-422
Serving the Family From Birth to the Medical Home
Newborn Screening: A Blueprint for the Future A Call for a National Agenda on State Newborn Screening Programs
Newborn screening in the United States is a public health program aimed at the early identification of conditions for which early and timely interventions can lead to the elimination or reduction of associated mortality, morbidity, and disabilities. The universal acceptance of newborn screening for specified conditions over the past 3 decades attests to the undeniable benefits that flow from early testing and prompt, appropriate therapy.

PEDIATRICS Vol. 111 No. 3 March 2003, pp. 451-455
Effectiveness of Pulse Oximetry Screening for Congenital Heart Disease in Asymptomatic Newborns
Robert I. Koppel, MD*, Charlotte M. Druschel, MD, MPH, Tonia Carter, MS, Barry E. Goldberg, MD, Prabhu N. Mehta, MD, Rohit Talwar, MD and Fredrick Z. Bierman, MD*

Newborn screening is an essential, preventive public health program. For nearly 40 years, newborn screening programs have provided an important public health service by identifying newborns with congenital conditions that could be managed effectively with intervention early in life.8 Screening programs have been developed for metabolic, hematologic, and endocrine disorders and more recently for hearing loss.9 The effectiveness of a screening program is dependent on 1) prevalence of the disorder of interest, 2) simple and reliable methods, 3) available treatment, and 4) favorable cost/benefit ratio.10 On the basis of these criteria, CCVM represents a newborn condition that would be ideally suited to a screening program if simple and reliable methods were available.

In terms of cost, pulse oximetry screening for critical cardiovascular malformations continues to compare favorably with the other tests in the current newborn screening panel. the yield of this screening test higher than almost all conditions for which newborn screening is currently performed With respect to the cost of this screening, the nurses providing the routine newborn care in the well-baby nurseries performed the oximetry. The average time required to place the Velcro wrap-around oximeter probe on the infant’s foot, allow the infant to settle, and obtain a stable waveform was approximately one minute. The reusable probes are swabbed with alcohol between patients and are considered by infection control to be analogous to blood pressure cuffs that are placed in direct contact with clean, unbroken skin on multiple patients. We believe that oximetry screening represents an inexpensive, non-invasive method that can enhance the clinician’s ability to detect life-threatening illness in a timely manner.

Current legislation and other awareness programs by state:
| AK | AL | AR | AZ | CA | CT | CO | DE | FL | GA | HI | IA | ID | IL | IN | KS | KY | LA | MA | MD | ME | MI | MN | MO | MS | MT | NC | ND | NE | NH | NJ | NM | NV | NY | OH | OK | OR | PA | RI | SC | SD | TN | TX | UT | VT | VA | WA | WI | WV | WY |

AL Alabama

AK Alaska

AZ Arizona

AR Arkansas

CA California

CO Colorado

CT Connecticut

DE Deleware

FL Florida

GA Georgia

HI Hawaii

ID Idaho

IL Illinois

IN Indiana

IA Iowa

KS Kansas

KY Kentucky

LA Louisiana

ME Maine

MD Maryland

MA Massachussets

MI Michigan

MN Minnesota

MS Mississippi
MISSISSIPPI LEGISLATURE
2005 Regular Session, House Bill 1052
Be it enacted by the legislature of the state of mississippi:
SECTION 1. The physician attending any newborn child in a hospital in this state, or the person attending any newborn child in a hospital in this state if the child is not attended by a physician, shall have the child's oxygen saturation level tested with an oxygen saturation probe at least one (1) time before the child is discharged from the hospital. If a child's oxygen saturation level is below ninety-five percent (95%) when initially tested, the physician or other person attending the child shall have the child's oxygen saturation level retested one (1) week after the initial test and two (2) weeks after the second test. If the child's oxygen saturation level is below ninety-five percent (95%) after the third test, the physician or other person attending the child shall conduct such other tests as necessary to determine the cause for the child's low oxygen saturation level.
SECTION 2. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after July 1, 2005.
History of Actions:
01/17 (H) Referred To Public Health and Human Services
02/01 (H) Died In Committee

MO Missouri

MT Montana

NE Nebraska

NV Nevada

NH New Hampshire

NJ New Jersey

NM New Mexico

NY New York

NC North Carolina

ND North Dakota

OH Ohio

OK Oklahoma

OR Oregon

PA Pennsylvania

RI Rhode Island

SC South Carolina

SD South Dakota

TN Tennessee

Bill Summary for HB2005 / SB2208
Present law directs the department of health to develop a program for the diagnosis and treatment of certain life-threatening conditions present in the perinatal period. "Perinatal" means the period from time of conception through the first year of life of the infant and 60 days post partum for the mother. The program must assist pregnant women and their fetuses and newborn infants by developing a regionalized system of care, including highly specialized personnel, equipment and techniques that will decrease the existing high mortality rate and the life-long disabilities that currently prevail in surviving newborn infants. Under this bill, a physician attending any newborn child in a hospital in this state, or the person attending any newborn child in a hospital in this state if the child is not attended by a physician, would be required to have the child's oxygen saturation level tested with an oxygen probe at least one time before the child is discharged from the hospital. The reading would be done shortly before discharge on the child's finger and toe. If a child's oxygen saturation level is below 92 percent when initially evaluated, the physician or other person attending the child would conduct other tests such as chest x-ray and echocardiography by a pediatric cardiologist to determine the cause for the child's low oxygen saturation level.

TX Texas

Texas hospitals do not have organ donation releases from their patients who are near brain death and have healthy organs to donate. DEAR (Donor Education Awareness & Registry) Program of Texas (http://www.dearprogram.org/) can remedy this situation. By increasing Texans awareness that more lives can be saved and by registering a larger pool of organ donors we can increase the chances of finding life saving organs and prevent needless deaths.

UT Utah

VT Vermont

VA Virginia

WA Washington

WV West Virginia

WI Wisconsin

WY Wyoming