Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Risk factors
By Mayo Clinic staffCongenital heart defects appear to run in families and sometimes occur with other genetic problems, such as Down syndrome. If you have a child with a congenital heart defect, a genetic counselor can predict the approximate odds that any future children could have one.
Patent ductus arteriosus is more common in premature babies. Also, babies with other types of congenital heart defects often have a patent ductus arteriosus.
Experiencing any of the following conditions during pregnancy can increase your risk of having a baby with a heart defect.
- Rubella infection. Becoming infected with rubella (German measles) while pregnant can increase the risk of fetal heart defects. The rubella virus crosses the placenta and spreads through the fetus's circulatory system damaging blood vessels and organs, including the heart.
- Poorly controlled diabetes. Uncontrolled diabetes in the mother in turn affects the fetus's blood sugar causing various damaging effects to the developing fetus.
- Drug or alcohol use or exposure to certain substances. Use of certain medications, alcohol or drugs, or exposure to chemicals or radiation during pregnancy can harm the developing fetus.
