The evidence log
Updates
Three kinds of entries live here. Evidence updates - when guidance changes or a significant study publishes, with the source and the date we checked it. Announcements - changes to this site. Guest essays - invited first-person accounts, clearly labeled, never presented as medical evidence.
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Opening the atrial septum: the difference shows up only when it works
Texas Children's, 42 eligible fetuses. Trying to open a sealed septum did not significantly change survival. A technically successful opening did: 72 percent versus 21 percent.
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Fetal cardiac intervention: the largest summary yet, and what it does not settle
A 2026 meta-analysis of 775 fetuses finds lower postnatal death after intervention, driven by aortic valvuloplasty. Live birth unchanged, rarer procedures still unproven, and the five-to-ten-percent fetal risk stands.
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Research roundup: what changed for fetal hearts in 2025-26
Treatable-before-birth is now documented medicine for specific diagnoses. AI caught 96.8% of severe defects in a multicenter test. And England's national cohort found 40.3% of babies with detected CHD needed no intervention in infancy.
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How good is the 20-week heart screen? What registry data actually shows
Detection rates vary widely between countries and programs. We summarize what the IPAK-CARD collaborative analysis and ISUOG guidance say about what "detected before birth" really means - and why a missed finding is not anyone's failure.
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This site is live - what we are, and what we refuse to be
An independent education site for families facing a fetal heart finding, continuing the public-education direction of this domain's former occupant. Our rules: cite everything, diagnose nothing.