“Is it risky for children to have open heart surgery?”

The short answer is yes, it is risky for kids (and adults) to have open heart surgery. Many of the riskiest surgeries are required in the first months of life. If this is the first heart surgery your son has needed, there’s a good chance that it is not one of the more complicated procedures that congenital heart surgeons perform. Some of the factors that affect outcomes include the particular heart defect and surgery needed, your son’s overall health, and the institution and surgeon that will be performing the operation. You should discuss these issues with your son’s pediatric cardiologist. Ask about different institutions in your area their outcomes. You can find outcomes for most surgical centers at https://publicreporting.sts.org/chsd. Just remember that the outcomes you see there are averaged over the last 4 years.

There is a lot of information to digest when it comes to congenital heart surgery. Your pediatric cardiologist expects you to have lots of questions and concerns, and they will help you along the way. There are also excellent support groups on the internet and Facebook.

Yes

It depends on the surgery. There are many surgeries for congenital heart disease that have very high likelihood of success with low rates of morbidity or mortality. Success rates for many of these surgeries is greater than 95% with excellent long term outcome. For complex congenital heart disease the surgeries are often more complicated with a higher likelihood of longer hospital stay, need for another operation in the future and increased risk of morbidity and mortality. You cardiologist should be able to tell you the likelihood of a good outcome based on the type of problem your 2 year old has.