Thank you for visiting my fundraising page for the Congenital Heart Walk. Raising funds for CHD research is critically important to all Heart Warriors and Heart Angels, and personally very meaningful to me. 

Ty is 18mo old now, and has had 2 open heart surgeries, 2 heart caths (with a third this summer), numerosi sedated echos, and too many doctors visits to count. Every day I am in awe of how brave and happy he is. 

Here are some statistics on CHDs, and why it is so important to us that more funding is given to researcher them. 

* CHDs are a leading cause of birth defect-associated infant illness and death.
* CHDs affect nearly 1% of―or about 40,000―births per year in the United States.
* The prevalence (the number of babies born with heart defect compared to the total number of births) of some CHDs, especially mild types, is increasing, while the prevalence of other types has remained stable. The most common CHD is a ventricular septal defect (VSD). 
* Children with CHD are about 50% more likely to receive special education services compared to children without birth defects.
*** all statistics came from the CDC website https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/heartdefects/data.html)