Supporting a Child Through Congenital Heart Surgery: Feeding, Comfort and the Unit Stay

The night before, most parents do the same small thing. They stand in the doorway after the house goes quiet and watch their child breathe. The consent form is signed. The bag is half packed. And the questions that keep surfacing are rarely about the operation itself; they are about everything around it. Will she be hungry and not understand why? Will he know I am there? What will the room look like when I finally see him again?

That is the real territory of child heart surgery parent preparation. The surgical team owns the repair. You own the parts a child actually remembers: the smell of a familiar blanket, a voice that stays level, a bottle offered at the right moment, a parent who can tell an ordinary post-operative afternoon from one that needs a nurse now.

This guide walks through what happens in the operating room and the unit, how feeding and comfort change before and after the operation, and which signs matter once you are home. Where numbers appear, they come from mainstream clinical sources. Where the evidence is thin, we say so.

What actually happens during a child's heart operation?

A congenital heart defect is a problem with the structure of the heart that is present from birth. The CDC estimates these defects affect nearly 1 in 100 babies born in the United States, and about 1 in 4 of those babies has a critical defect that needs surgery or another procedure in the first year of life. Most children who reach an operating room have already had an echocardiogram, an ultrasound scan of the heart, so the surgeon knows the anatomy in detail before the first cut.

Open heart surgery in children usually means a median sternotomy, a straight incision down the center of the breastbone, which gives the surgeon a clear view. For many repairs the heart is stopped for a period and a cardiopulmonary bypass machine, a pump with an artificial lung, takes over circulation and breathing. Blood leaves the body through tubes, is oxygenated and warmed or cooled as needed, and returns. Once the repair is complete, the heart is restarted and the machine is withdrawn.

Not every child needs this. Some defects are treated through a catheter, a thin tube threaded through a blood vessel in the groin to the heart, and some operations are done on a beating heart without bypass. The team chooses the route the defect requires, not the one that sounds least frightening.

Closing the chest matters to parents more than they expect. The two halves of the breastbone are brought together with stainless steel wires that stay in place permanently and do not set off airport scanners in a way that needs special paperwork. The skin is closed with dissolving stitches or surgical glue. In some very small infants the chest is left open under a sterile dressing for a day or two so swelling can settle before closure; this is a planned decision, not a sign that something went wrong.

Expect the whole episode to take several hours. Much of that is anesthesia, line placement and the slow, careful period after the repair while the team checks rhythm, bleeding and pressures before moving to intensive care.

Who has surgery soon, and who is usually asked to wait?

Timing depends on physiology, not on how worried a family is. Some defects produce what cardiologists call a duct-dependent circulation, where blood flow to the body or the lungs relies on a vessel that normally closes in the first days of life. Those babies are typically operated on in the newborn period, sometimes within days of birth, because the window cannot be stretched.

Other children are deliberately asked to wait. A ventricular septal defect, a hole in the wall between the two pumping chambers, is often watched for months because a proportion close on their own, as Mayo Clinic notes in its treatment overview. Growth matters too: a larger child offers larger vessels and tissue that holds stitches better, so surgeons may schedule an elective repair for a particular weight or age rather than a particular month. Children born with a single working pumping chamber usually follow a staged plan, a series of operations spread across the first few years, with each step timed to how the lungs and heart are developing.

Short-notice postponements are the hardest kind of waiting. A cold, a fever, a chesty cough or a recent gastroenteritis can push a date back because anesthesia and bypass are safer when the airways and immune system are not already busy. Teams also pause when a blood test, a new murmur or an echocardiogram finding changes the plan. It can feel like losing a place in a queue. In clinical terms it is the opposite: the team is protecting the operation.

The decision about when, and whether, to operate sits with the cardiology and surgical team, and it should be explained in a way you can repeat back. If the reasoning does not make sense to you, ask for it again, in writing if that helps. A good plan survives being questioned.

Child heart surgery parent preparation: the weeks before admission

Most centers hold a pre-admission visit a week or two before the date. Your child will usually have blood tests, an electrocardiogram (a tracing of the heart’s electrical activity), a chest X-ray and often a repeat echocardiogram. You will meet an anesthesiologist, who will ask about previous anesthetics, allergies, loose teeth, snoring and any family history of reactions to anesthesia. Bring an up-to-date list of every medicine, supplement and herbal product your child takes, including inhalers and vitamins. The team decides what continues up to the day of surgery; do not stop or change anything on your own.

Use the visit to learn names and routes. Who calls you after the operation? Which number reaches the unit at night? Where do parents sleep? Many hospitals employ child life specialists, professionals trained to prepare children for procedures through play and plain explanation; ask whether a session or a tour of the unit can be arranged, because seeing a monitor before it is attached to your child changes how the room feels later.

The practical layer is just as real. Arrange leave, and arrange it for longer than the quoted stay, because discharge dates move. Line up care for siblings and a plan for pets. Decide who the single point of contact will be for relatives, so you are not repeating the same update nine times at midnight.

In the final week, protect your child from sick contacts where you reasonably can. Mention anything new at all to the team: a rash, a cough, a sore tooth, a change in appetite. Infection anywhere in the body can affect timing. Ask specifically about vaccinations, because some teams prefer certain vaccines to be given a set interval before or after bypass surgery; that is a scheduling question for them, not a reason to skip immunization.

Finally, write your own questions down. Clinic rooms have a way of emptying the mind.

Preparing your child for heart surgery at every age

The right preparation is pitched to developmental stage, not to the parent’s anxiety. Research on psychological preparation for pediatric surgery is of mixed quality, but the consistent finding is that honest, age-matched information tends to reduce distress rather than increase it.

Infants cannot understand what is coming, but they read a parent’s body. Keep routines steady in the days before. Bring the swaddle, the pacifier and the sound they fall asleep to. Your calm is the preparation.

Toddlers live in the present, so tell them a day or two beforehand, not weeks. Use short concrete sentences: the doctors will help your heart work better; you will have a special sleep medicine; Mom or Dad will be there when you wake up. Avoid saying the doctor will “put you to sleep” if your family has lost a pet with those words.

Preschoolers often believe illness is a punishment and that bodies can leak out through a cut. Say plainly that nothing they did caused this and that doctors sew the skin closed. Playing hospital with a doll, a toy stethoscope and a bandage is not a gimmick; it is how this age group rehearses.

School-age children want mechanics. Show a simple diagram of the heart, explain the bypass machine as a helper that does the heart’s job for a while, and let them pack their own bag. Give them a week or so to ask questions as they arise.

Teenagers deserve the full picture, including pain, the scar, the breathing tube and the loss of privacy. Invite them into the consultation, let them ask the surgeon directly, and agree on what they will tell friends. Be honest that recovery is boring before it is hard.

At every age, one message matters most: you will not be left alone, and the adults around you know what to do.

Feeding before surgery: fasting rules, breast milk and the night before

Fasting before anesthesia exists for one reason: an empty stomach lowers the risk of aspiration, which is stomach contents entering the lungs while the protective reflexes are switched off. The cutoff times differ for clear fluids, breast milk, formula and solid food, and they differ between centers, so the only numbers that matter are the ones your team writes down for you. If the schedule changes, the times change with it. Ask rather than guess, and ask again if the operation is delayed on the day.

Breastfeeding parents can usually continue right up to the stated time for breast milk, and many units encourage it, because a settled, recently fed infant handles the pre-operative wait better. Bring a pump or ask for one on the unit; expressing on a schedule keeps supply going through the hours when your baby cannot feed, and stored milk is often used when feeds restart.

Many infants with significant heart disease were already difficult feeders before surgery. A heart that is working too hard raises calorie needs while tiring the baby out mid-feed, so weight gain stalls. It is common for a dietitian to have fortified the milk or for a nasogastric tube, a thin soft tube passed through the nose into the stomach, to be in place beforehand. None of this is a failure of parenting. It is the disease, and surgery is often the step that lets feeding improve.

For an older child, keep the last meal unremarkable. A favorite dinner at the usual time, within the rules, then teeth and bed. Avoid building the “last meal” into an event, which signals that something dreadful is coming. Pack the usual cup or bottle for the unit, since familiar objects make the first post-operative sips easier.

One more thing to ask: whether any morning medicine should be given with a sip of water on the day. That is a decision for the anesthesia team, not for the kitchen table.

Pediatric cardiac ICU: what to expect in the first hours

The first sight of your child after surgery stays with you, so it helps to know the picture in advance. Expect a face that looks puffy and pale, eyelids that may be taped shut to protect them, and more equipment than seems possible around one small body. Each piece has a job.

• A breathing tube connected to a ventilator does the work of breathing while anesthesia wears off and the heart settles.
• A central venous line, a long intravenous catheter in a large vein of the neck or groin, delivers medicines and measures pressure inside the heart.
• An arterial line, a thin catheter in the wrist or groin, measures blood pressure beat by beat.
• Chest drains are tubes that remove blood, fluid or air from around the heart and lungs.
• Temporary pacing wires, fine wires resting on the heart’s surface and exiting the skin, allow the team to control heart rhythm if needed.
• Monitor leads, a pulse oximeter on a finger or foot, and often a urinary catheter complete the set.

Alarms sound often. Most are the system flagging a value just outside a set range or a lead that has slipped; the nurse at the bedside will tell you which ones matter. Staffing is close, frequently one nurse to one or two patients, and the team reviews every child at least once a day in a formal round that you may be invited to join.

Removal of the breathing tube, called extubation, often happens within hours for simpler repairs and over a longer period for complex ones; the team will give you their expectation and update it. Ask where you can safely touch. A hand on the chest or a finger in the palm is almost always possible, and many units support a parent’s voice, a familiar song and even skin-to-skin contact once lines allow. You are not a visitor on this unit. You are part of the care.

Keeping a child comfortable on the unit: pain, sleep and your presence

Pain after a sternotomy is real and is taken seriously. Nurses assess it on a schedule using age-appropriate tools: a faces scale that children point to, or a behavioral scale for infants that scores facial expression, leg position, activity, crying and how easily the baby is consoled. You will likely be asked what your child looks like when hurting, because parents often read a frown or a particular cry faster than any scale.

Medicines are part of this. In the first day or two, strong pain relievers called opioids are commonly used, often alongside a sedative while the breathing tube is in, then the plan steps down to non-opioid medicines as the chest settles. The choice, timing and amounts are made by the prescribing team and adjusted to your child’s scores, breathing and blood pressure; this article deliberately does not describe doses, and you should not compare your child’s plan to another family’s.

Comfort that does not come from a syringe matters as much. Dimming lights and clustering tasks so a child can sleep in longer blocks reduces stress. Swaddling an infant around the arms (never pressing on the chest), offering a pacifier, playing the same lullaby from home and keeping one parent’s voice present all count. Some units use a few drops of a sweet solution for brief procedures in young infants; ask what your unit does.

Two things surprise parents. The first is delirium, a state of confusion, agitation or unusual quietness that can follow intensive care, especially after sedation. It is distressing to watch, usually temporary, and the team wants to know if your child seems “not themselves.” The second is how normal it is for a toddler to be angry with the parent who stayed. That anger is trust, not rejection.

Ask early about “comfort holding”: how and when you can hold your child while lines and drains are still in. On many units this happens sooner than parents expect.

Feeding after infant heart surgery and in older children

Feeding restarts in steps, not all at once. In the first hours nutrition comes through an intravenous line while the gut recovers from bypass and the team confirms that breathing and circulation are stable. Small volumes are then introduced, often through a nasogastric tube, and increased as the baby tolerates them. Expressed breast milk is commonly used for this, which is one reason pumping through the fasting period pays off.

Appetite and stamina return slowly. Even after a successful repair, an infant may tire during a bottle for a week or more, so a dietitian may fortify milk to deliver more calories in less volume. Weight is tracked daily on the unit and at every follow-up visit, because steady gain is one of the clearest signs that the heart is doing its job with less effort.

Two specific complications are worth knowing by name so they do not frighten you if mentioned on a ward round. Operations near the aortic arch or the upper chest can bruise the nerve that moves a vocal cord, producing a hoarse cry, coughing or choking with feeds; a swallow study, an X-ray video taken while the baby feeds, may be arranged and feeding adjusted while the nerve recovers. Chylothorax is a leak of lymph fluid, which is rich in fat, into the space around the lungs after chest surgery. It is usually managed with a special low-fat feed or diet for a period and is monitored through the chest drains.

Older children typically eat poorly for a week or two. Nausea from anesthesia, altered taste, a sore chest and simple fatigue all play a part. Offer small portions often, favor foods they know, and follow the team’s guidance on fluids, because some children are kept on a measured fluid allowance while the heart adjusts. Pressuring a child to eat tends to backfire; recording what they manage and sharing it with the dietitian tends to help.

What do the following days usually look like?

Every child’s course differs, and the team’s estimate should always override a table. Still, families find it useful to see the general shape. MedlinePlus describes a hospital stay for open heart surgery that typically runs from several days to a week or more, with the first part spent in intensive care and complex repairs taking longer, and full recovery that stretches over about six weeks as the breastbone knits.

Stage	What commonly happens	What parents can do
Day of surgery	Several hours in the operating room; transfer to intensive care with breathing tube, lines and drains	Rest, eat, keep the phone charged; expect a call when the operation ends
First 1–2 days	Breathing tube removed when stable; pain and sedation adjusted; first small feeds, often by tube	Be present, speak softly, report the signs of pain you recognize
Next few days	Chest drains and pacing wires removed; move to a ward bed; feeds and mobility increase	Begin holding, feeding and walking with nursing guidance
Discharge	Wound checked, medicines explained, follow-up and red flags given in writing	Ask every question; repeat the plan back to the nurse
First 2 weeks at home	Fatigue, poor appetite, clinginess and disturbed sleep are common	Short walks or floor play, routine bedtimes, wound inspection daily
About 6 weeks	Breastbone healing well in most children; activity restrictions reviewed at clinic	Follow the team’s advice on school, sport and lifting

Progress is rarely a straight line. A good day followed by a feverish, miserable one is common and does not mean the repair has failed; it does mean the team should hear about it. Children also tend to recover in jumps, lying flat for three days and then demanding to walk the corridor. Let the nurses set the pace.

Child open heart surgery recovery at home: how long does it take?

The honest answer is that energy comes back over weeks and the bone takes longer than the child. MedlinePlus advises families to protect the breastbone for roughly six weeks after surgery, and most clinics time their first activity review around that point. Your team may give a different window for your child; theirs is the one to follow.

Protecting the sternum has a few practical rules. Do not lift a baby or toddler under the arms; instead scoop them with one hand under the bottom and the other behind the head and back. Avoid pulling on their arms to sit them up, and avoid activities that push or pull hard through the chest, such as crawling races, swinging on bars or heavy backpacks. Older children are usually kept out of contact sports and physical education until the clinic clears them. Car seats are fine, and the strap across the chest is not a problem.

Wound care is simpler than parents fear. Keep the incision clean and dry, let dissolving stitches or glue fall away on their own, and follow the team’s instructions on when showers are allowed and when a soaking bath can resume. Once the scar has fully healed, protect it from sun for its first year because new scar tissue darkens easily.

Give every medicine exactly as written on the discharge sheet and bring the sheet to each appointment. If a dose is vomited or missed, call the team rather than improvising. Most children leave with at least one follow-up echocardiogram booked, and many stay under cardiology review for life, which reflects the nature of congenital heart disease rather than any problem with the operation.

Behaviour changes are part of recovery. Expect clinginess, regression in toilet training, nightmares and short tempers for a few weeks. Routine, patience and a return to ordinary life at the pace the team suggests do more than any special program. School return is usually a conversation with the clinic rather than a fixed date.

Child heart surgery parent preparation for you, your partner and siblings

Parents of children in pediatric intensive care report high levels of anxiety and, for a meaningful proportion, symptoms of traumatic stress that can persist for months after discharge. Preparing yourself is not indulgence; it is part of preparing your child, because infants and toddlers borrow regulation from the adults beside them.

Build a shift system before admission. Two exhausted parents at one bedside at 3 a.m. help no one. Decide who sleeps when, who handles the morning round, and who holds the phone for relatives. Accept the meal train, the lift to the hospital and the offer to walk the dog. Eat something warm once a day. These sound trivial and they are the things that collapse first.

Siblings notice everything and are told the least. Give them a truthful, age-appropriate explanation, including that nothing they did caused the problem and that they will not catch it. Keep their routines as normal as possible, let them visit if the unit allows, and give them a job: drawing a picture for the bedside, choosing the music, packing the comfort toy. Jealousy and acting out in a sibling are common and usually fade once the family is home.

If friends ask what to send, steer them away from flowers and latex balloons, which many units prohibit, and toward things that are actually used: a long phone charging cable, lip balm, a refillable water bottle, a notebook for questions and ward-round notes, warm layers for a cold unit, snacks that do not need a fridge, and for the child a small photo of the family or a recording of a sibling reading a story. Nothing on that list is medical. All of it gets used.

Hospitals employ social workers, psychologists and chaplains for exactly this situation. Asking to see one is a sign you understand the assignment, not that you are failing it.

What people often get wrong about children's heart surgery

Myths travel faster than discharge summaries. Here are the ones that cause the most unnecessary distress, and what the evidence actually shows.

“Open heart means they cut the heart open and damage it.” The term refers to opening the chest and using bypass. Most repairs work on specific structures: closing a hole with a patch, widening a narrow valve or vessel, rerouting a connection. Healthy muscle is handled, not sacrificed.

“My child will remember the operation.” General anesthesia prevents awareness during surgery. What children remember is the unit, the mask and whether a parent was there, which is why preparation and presence are worth the effort.

“After surgery the heart problem is fixed forever.” Many repairs are durable, yet congenital heart disease is a lifelong condition. The CDC estimates that more adults than children in the United States are now living with a congenital heart defect, roughly 1.4 million adults and 1 million children, and most need periodic cardiology review. Follow-up is not a sign the operation underperformed.

“If I cry in front of my child I will frighten them.” Children are frightened by concealment and by adults who seem unreachable. Tears with an explanation, “I am sad because I love you and this is hard,” are easier for a child to process than a frozen smile.

“Breastfeeding has to stop.” It usually pauses and then resumes. Expressed milk is often the first feed given after surgery.

“A fever means the surgery failed.” Fever has many causes after an operation, from a blocked drain site to an ordinary virus. It always deserves a call; it rarely means the repair has come undone.

“A scar means no sport.” Most children return to normal activity after the bone heals, with guidance on timing and intensity from their own team.

Questions to ask your care team

The right questions turn a frightening process into a plan you can carry. Bring these to the pre-admission visit and again on the day of discharge, and write the answers in a notebook you keep at the bedside.

• What exactly will be repaired, and is this expected to be a single operation or one stage of several?
• Will my child be on the bypass machine, and for roughly how long?
• What are the main risks for my child specifically, and what alternatives, including waiting, were considered?
• Who will call me when the operation finishes, and how long after that can I be at the bedside?
• What will my child look like in intensive care, and which tubes are likely to be there?
• How is pain assessed and managed on this unit, and what signs of pain should I report?
• When can I hold my child, and can I help with feeding, washing or settling?
• What are the fasting times for clear fluids, breast milk, formula and solids, and whom do I call if the schedule changes?
• How will feeding restart, and is a nasogastric tube or fortified milk likely?
• What is the expected length of stay, and what would make it longer?
• Which medicines will my child go home on, what does each do, and what should I do if a dose is vomited or missed?
• How do I protect the breastbone, and for how long?
• When can my child shower, bathe, return to daycare or school, and play sport?
• What fever threshold, breathing signs or wound changes should prompt a call, and what should send us straight to emergency care?
• Who is my named contact after discharge, and how do I reach the team at night or on weekends?
• When is the first follow-up, and what will it involve?
• Is there psychological or social-work support for parents and siblings, and how do I access it?

No team objects to a parent who asks. The questions that feel small, about bathing or the sibling who wants to visit, are often the ones that change how the stay feels.

When to call your doctor

Your discharge sheet will list the team’s own thresholds, and those override anything here. The general principle is simple: after heart surgery, the team would rather hear about ten false alarms than miss one real problem.

Call the cardiac team or your doctor the same day if you notice a fever at or above the level they specified; breathing that is faster or harder than usual, including grunting, flaring nostrils or the skin pulling in between the ribs; a wound that is red, warm, swollen, leaking fluid or pus, or that has opened; a clicking or shifting sensation in the breastbone; new swelling of the face, eyelids, abdomen or legs; feeding that has dropped off noticeably, repeated vomiting, or fewer wet diapers than usual; a heart rate that seems unusually fast or irregular at rest; unusual sleepiness, floppiness or irritability that you cannot settle; or any medicine that has been vomited, missed or is causing side effects you were not warned about.

Call emergency services immediately if your child’s lips, tongue or face turn blue or gray; if breathing becomes severely labored or stops; if your child faints, becomes unresponsive or has a seizure; if there is heavy bleeding from the wound; or if an older child reports sudden severe chest pain.

Trust your instincts about “not right.” Parents frequently detect a change in color, cry or behavior hours before a number on a monitor moves, and clinicians rely on that. Keep the unit’s number and your discharge sheet on the fridge and in your phone, and never hesitate to use them. Every decision about what the finding means, and what to do next, belongs to the treating team; your job is to make the call.

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take for a child to recover from open heart surgery?

Most children feel more like themselves within a couple of weeks, while the breastbone takes about six weeks to heal according to MedlinePlus guidance, and the team usually reviews activity restrictions around that point. The hospital stay itself typically runs from several days to a week or more, longer for complex repairs. Your child’s own team will give a timeline tailored to the operation, and that estimate should override any general figure.

What care should I expect to give at home after my child's heart surgery?

Home care centers on four things: giving medicines exactly as written on the discharge sheet, keeping the incision clean and dry and checking it daily, protecting the breastbone by scooping rather than lifting under the arms, and watching feeding, breathing and color. Expect fatigue, poor appetite and clinginess for a few weeks. Follow-up echocardiograms will be booked, and you should have a named contact to call with any concern.

What do parents wish they had known before their child's open heart surgery?

The most common answers are practical: how swollen and pale a child looks in intensive care, how many alarms sound without meaning emergency, how slowly feeding restarts, and how long a toddler stays angry with the parent who stayed. Parents also wish they had arranged leave for longer than the quoted stay, set up a shift system for sleep, and asked earlier about when they could hold their child.

What is a good care package to give a family after a child's heart surgery?

Practical beats decorative. Useful items include a long phone charging cable, lip balm, a refillable water bottle, a notebook for ward-round questions, warm layers for a cold unit, and snacks that do not need a fridge. For the child, a small family photo or a recording of a sibling reading a story is often used daily. Avoid flowers and latex balloons, which many units do not allow.

Can I stay with my child in the pediatric cardiac ICU overnight?

Policies vary, but most pediatric cardiac units allow parents at the bedside for most of the day and night and provide somewhere nearby to sleep, even if it is not beside the bed. Ask at the pre-admission visit exactly what is allowed, whether both parents can be present during rounds, and where you can rest. Many units actively encourage a parent’s presence because it helps settle the child.

Will my child remember the operation?

No. General anesthesia prevents awareness during surgery, so children do not form memories of the operation itself. What they may remember is the time around it: the mask, the unit, the breathing tube coming out, and whether a parent was there. That is why age-appropriate preparation and a familiar voice at the bedside matter more than any detail of the surgical technique.

Can I keep breastfeeding my baby around heart surgery?

Usually yes, with a pause. You can typically breastfeed up to the fasting time the team gives for breast milk, then express on a schedule during the hours your baby cannot feed. Expressed milk is often the first feed introduced after surgery, sometimes through a nasogastric tube and sometimes fortified for extra calories. Ask the unit for a pump, storage guidance and a quiet place to express.

When can my child go back to school or daycare after heart surgery?

This is a clinic decision based on the operation and your child’s energy, but it is commonly a few weeks after discharge, with physical education, contact sports and heavy backpacks held back until the breastbone has healed, which MedlinePlus puts at roughly six weeks. Daycare raises the question of infection exposure in the early weeks, so ask your team directly and get the advice in writing for the school.

What will the scar look like, and will it fade?

A sternotomy leaves a straight vertical scar down the center of the chest, which is initially pink or red and raised, then softens and fades over the first year or two. Keep it out of direct sun for its first year, because new scar tissue darkens easily, and ask the team when moisturizing or gentle massage can begin. Scars grow with the child but usually become less noticeable over time.

Does a child need more surgery after a congenital heart repair?

It depends on the defect. Some repairs are expected to last a lifetime; others, such as staged operations for a single pumping chamber or valve or conduit repairs that a child can outgrow, are planned as a series. Lifelong cardiology follow-up is standard for most congenital heart conditions, as the CDC and American Heart Association note. Your surgeon can tell you which category your child’s repair falls into.

References

• MedlinePlus: Pediatric heart surgery
• MedlinePlus: Pediatric heart surgery – discharge
• CDC: About Congenital Heart Defects
• NHS: Congenital heart disease, treatment

This article is for general information only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Please consult a qualified doctor about your individual situation.