Understanding Heart Baffles: Purpose and Congenital Heart Defect Treatment

A baffle is an artificially-created wall or tunnel within the atria of the heart. It's designed to redirect the flow of blood. Baffles are used in patients who experience congenital heart defects.

Heart Defects

• Congenital heart defects are among the most common of birth defects. They affect about 0.9 percent of births. Defects can obstruct the blood flow, cause leaks, or cause the blood to flow inadequately or wrongly.

Transposition of the Great Vessels

• Transposition of the great vessels, or TGV, is a condition in which the vessels, arteries, pulmonary veins and/or aorta of the heart are arranged abnormally. Oxygen-depleted blood does not then exit from the right side of the heart, become oxygenated by the lungs, and then enter the left side of the heart correctly as it should. The baffle redirects the oxygenated blood to the right ventricle.

Treatments

• Treatments for congenital heart defects include drugs--such as Diuretics or ACE inhibitors--and surgery. Only in the case of TGV surgery is a baffle required and must be created--either from tissue taken from the pericardium--or from the atrium wall, redirecting the blood to its proper place.