M. HOLÁŇ
Thanks to the great development of the ultrasound technique, PRENATAL CARDIOLOGY became a well-recognised interdisciplinary field. Early prenatal diagnosis helps inform and prepare parents for various options for management of their child. It also optimises planning of the transport in utero, labour and fast transport to cardiology, where the operation of the heart in children still in good clinical state significantly improves the child’s prognosis. In the centre of interest there were mainly two issues in this period: Congenital heart defects (ICD) with their morphology and functional issues and prenatal arhythmias.
The optimal period for the foetus examination is between 20th and 22ns week of pregnancy, and it is ruled with known indication criteria, which are usually partially modified according to personal and equipment possibilities of a particular workplace. Due to limitation of examinations of larger amount of preganat women, some workplaces abandon some indication criteria as the age over 35, pregnancy with multiple foetuses, positive biochemical screening in the 1st trimester.