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Letter: One simple test can detect heart defect

When a baby is born, there is so much to be excited about. Is it a boy a girl? Who does she look like? But, at the end of the day, parents just want a healthy baby. One simple screening test can help give babies a healthy start.

Pulse oximetry is a simple, painless and inexpensive test that measures oxygen levels and can help detect congenital heart defects in a newborn. Wider use could help identify critical defects before your baby leaves the hospital and could serve to avoid life-threatening consequences, should the problem go unrecognized. Since congenital heart defects are the most common birth defects, it is surprising that New York does not require this simple screening.

I have performed more than 1,000 operations to correct congenital heart defects. The sooner we identify a problem, the sooner (and often better) we can correct it, which is why I support the American Heart Association's efforts to pass a law in New York that would require pulse ox screenings in newborns.

Thirteen other states have already acted to require the simple test to be conducted. Nowhere has the benefit been more clearly demonstrated than in New Jersey, where just hours after the screening law took effect, a newborn's life was saved because of the results of the pulse ox test.

New York must pass the pulse ox bill immediately, before we lose another precious young life to a heart defect that could have been caught on day one.

Dr. Neil Devejian

director, Pediatric Cardiothoracic Surgery

Albany Medical Center


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