What is CDH?

Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (CDH) occurs during development when the diaphragm fails to fully form, leaving a hole. This allows abdominal organs to enter (herniate) the chest cavity.

It sounds simple enough - just do a surgery to shove the organs down and patch it up! But it's not that easy. CDH occurs in 1/2500 births, 50% will not survive.

The main problems is that these organs in the chest keep the lungs from fully developing, and can also hinder the heart's growth as well. When these babies are born the main concern is how their lungs are going to function when they actually have to work! And is their heart going to be able to pump oxygen needed from the lungs to the rest of the body? Not to mention - how is everything else functioning?!

Once the baby is stabilized - which is different for each baby - they can do a repair surgery...and some babies will need more than one repair surgery - or need other surgeries to correct other organs.

Unfortunately, there's no guarantee.

The thing with CDH is that each baby is different. Is it right or left sided? What's in the cavity? How has this affected the heart? The lungs? Are there other problems in addition to the CDH? After birth, what kind of ventilation is needed? Do they need ECMO (a machine that will act as their heart and lungs)? And that's just a few instances.

In 2010, we have no idea what causes this in our children. None. Research is sparse at best, as is research funding. This condition is as common as cystic fibrosis and spina bifida.

The CDH community is a strong group, working hard to build awareness and raise funds to correct this deficit in research and understanding. www.cdhsupport.org