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Mary Kyle
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A Woman’s Heart: Heart Murmurs, Part 1-Innocent Murmurs

In the A Woman’s Heart series, we’ve been focusing on heart disease, identifying and recognizing risk factors as well as what we can to do to beat the odds and not become one of the heart disease statistics. This series has been exciting to me (and I hope to all my sisters out there as well) because I’ve been taking a long, hard look at my own life and am making changes. As Martha Stewart would say, “It’s a good thing!”

I never was much good at card games. I almost always drew the wrong card from the deck. Unfortunately, sometimes there are forms of heart disease, or other heart problems, for which there is either nothing or little we could have done to prevent it. We just simply drew the wrong card from the deck. Heart murmurs fall into the luck-of-the-draw category.

I have to confess that while I knew children were often born with heart murmurs (congenital heart murmurs), I didn’t realize that you can develop a heart murmur later in life. Depending on the type and cause, it might, or might not, be serious. So, how do you know when to be concerned?

What exactly is a heart murmur anyway?

We value and respect the experiences of all of our HerWriters, but everyone is different. Many of our writers are speaking from personal experience, and what's worked for them may not work for you. Their articles are not a substitute for medical advice although we hope you can gain knowledge from their insight.