By NATALIA HAWK
This Valentine’s Day, let’s forget about the cards, the roses, the balloons, the pink confetti and the heart-shaped cookies.
Instead, why don’t we focus our energy on something a hundred times more amazing?
You can help to mend a broken heart. And not a metaphorically broken heart. The real, tiny heart of a newborn baby who is struggling with heart disease.
February is Heart Awareness Month – and Valentine’s Day is also International Heart Defect Awareness Day.
HeartKids Australia is working hard this Valentine’s Day to raise awareness of child heart disease, which is actually the number one killer of infants in Australia.
On average, six babies are born with a heart defect every day in Australia. Yes, every single day. And even more tragically, four precious lives are lost every single week. Resulting in many more broken hearts for the families and friends of those much-loved babies.
It’s hard to hear the stories from the families and realise what they go through. Here’s a video from Xavier, who was born with an undiagnosed congenital heart defect. It’s confronting, it’s devastating and you’ll probably cry throughout. But it’s also a huge insight into what the parents of a Heartkid go through in the first few months on their child’s life.
Top Comments
Donation has already been made, in memory of my friend's gorgeous HeartKid, Imogen.
I also was born with TGA.... Watching this footage I was very emotional to think about what my parents/family had gone through when I was born. 18 months ago I welcomed my first baby, a healthy boy with no heart condition. I was well monitored during the pregnancy, I am healthy and fit, and my heart has recovered since the birth of my darling boy... What a gorgeous boy Xavier is.