University Children's Health Heart Center

The Only Dedicated Pediatric Heart Center in South Texas

When your infant or child is diagnosed with a congenital heart disease, you want the best pediatric heart specialists available to meet their needs. As the only dedicated pediatric heart center in South Texas, University Children’s Health Heart Center is recognized as a Designated Center of Excellence by the nation’s top insurance carriers including Aetna, OptumHealth and Superior HealthPlan. Additionally, our history of positive patient surgical outcomes far surpasses the national average. With our experienced and dedicated congenital heart team, you can be confident that your child is in capable hands.

Our Pediatric Heart Services

At our Heart Center, we provide care for newborns to young adults with a wide variety of congenital heart disease or congenital heart defects. Our team of pediatric heart specialists, like our pediatric cardiologists and pediatric heart surgeons, will work to find the best diagnosis and treatment for your child. Depending on your child’s heart problem, we offer both pediatric cardiac surgery as well as state-of-the-art minimally invasive treatments. Regardless of your child’s diagnosis or treatment, our team will treat your family as our own.

Our Heart Center offers:

Pediatric cardiology: initial evaluation, follow up and preventative care
Fetal echocardiography
Prenatal consultation services with cardiothoracic surgery
Fetal echocardiography and cardiology
Neonatal, infant, pediatric and adult congenital cardiac surgery
Diagnostic and interventional cardiac catheterization procedures
Dedicated inpatient pediatric cardiac intensivist team

Conditions and Treatments

At University Children’s Health Heart Center, we treat a variety of congenital heart defects in infants, children and even young adults.

Congenital heart disease and congenital heart defects are categorized into two groups, acyanotic heart defects and cyanotic heart defects. Both defects prevent the heart from correctly pumping blood. In an acyanotic heart defect, the blood flows from the left side to the right side of the heart because of a structural defect. However, the level of oxygen in the blood is not visibly affected. A cyanotic heart defect causes low levels of oxygen in the blood which can result in a blue tint to the patient’s skin.

Testing and Diagnosis

University Children’s Health Heart Center offers diagnostic tests on both an inpatient and outpatient basis from our home in University Health. Our Heart Center team will utilize a number of tests to diagnose your child’s congenital heart disease and to create a treatment plan that’s right for your child. Our pediatric heart specialists stay up to date with the very latest surgical treatments, as well as minimally invasive interventional cardiology treatments. We offer:

Pediatric Heart Patient Story

Meet Amelia, a rainbow baby born with six heart defects. University Health started her care before she was born. Now, Amelia’s had two open heart surgeries with one more still to come.