The Healing Hearts Program

Finding out that your baby has a congenital heart condition can be difficult.

The Healing Hearts program is a collection of curated resources to help educate and support parents and families on their child’s congenital heart disease journey.

What Is the Healing Hearts Program?

Healing Hearts is an educational platform created by our perinatal cardiology team to provide a high level of support to new prenatal cardiology parents.

At UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh’s Heart Institute, our goal is to provide exceptional, comprehensive care for the entire family.  To that end, we developed the Healing Hearts program – a collection of resources designed to address the unique needs of patients with CHDs and their families.

Healing Hearts provides prenatal parents with information to effectively prepare them for the challenges posed by their child’s cardiac diagnosis. Here you’ll find an assortment of recorded classes, video interviews, FAQs, webinars, downloadable papers, and other educational materials designed to help inform you and prepare you and your family for navigating the challenges associated with congenital heart disease (CHD).

Our introductory class for new perinatal parents covers a family’s cardiology journey at UPMC Children’s from delivery to going home. This session is led by UPMC Children’s alumni heart parents who discuss their children’s surgical heart journeys and give tips they learned along the way about life with congenital heart disease.

What Services Does the Healing Hearts Program Offer? 

Activities associated with Healing Hearts include:

Communications

Healing Hearts has a fun, interactive Instagram account that helps build bonds among our heart families and allows us to network with other hospitals and facilities.

On our Instagram, you can:

• Communicate with our perinatal and cardiology team.
• Get the latest news from the Heart Institute.
• Read other parents’ comments and concerns.
• View highlighted events.

Downloadables

Our fetal cardiology team has developed a growing library of downloadable materials for families of kids with CHD.

Some of our topics include:

• Breastfeeding.
• Cardiac Intensive Care Unit.
• Cardiac ICU Rounds Information.
• Cardiac ICU Room Tour.
• Cardiac ICU Nurse Questions 1.
• Cardiac ICU Nurse Questions 2.
• Food insecurity.
• Heart Camp/Heart Picnic.
• Infant feeding support.
• Introduction to UPMC Children’s.
• Local Support Groups
  • Local Support Groups - Mended Little Heart Presentation
  • Local Support Groups - ERIE American Heart Association Support Group
• Maternal postpartum resources.
• Neurodevelopmental program.
• Social work.
• UPMC Children’s Sibling Center.
• The Children’s Home and Lemieux Family Center.
• Virtual Tour of UPMC Magee-Women’s Hospital.
• Virtual tour of UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.

Programming

We offer:

• Cups of Care — Funded by donations to our Perinatal Cardiology fund and run by our social workers, Cups of Care provides $5 gift cards to the on-site Starbucks at UPMC Children's.
• Family Advisory Board – Alumni families of CHD patients counsel others on the needs and challenges of this population of kids.
• Resource bags — Provide supplies and goodies for families with funds donated by families and other organizations.
• Reading with Mila — Funded by Lea Kinneman and her daughter, Mila, and run by our Child Life team, this program underwrites the cost of books for our prenatal and inpatient families.

Webinars

Our webinars are presented by our alumni heart parents. They address the unique needs of families and patients dealing with a child’s CHD diagnosis.

Current webinar topics include:

• CHD Parents — From ICU to Home — Learn what to expect during your child's hospital stay from a parent who's been through it.
• CHD Parent Wellness — Learn from other parents about the value of your own wellness while your child is in the hospital.
• Coping Skills for Parents — UPMC Children's offers tips on how to cope with your child's hospital stay.
• Local Support Groups and Heart Camp — Learn about local CHD support groups and the yearly Heart Camp.
• Mindfulness Session — The social work team at UPMC Children's leads mindfulness sessions.
• Neurodevelopment and CHD — Learn how CHDs may cause delays in brain development and affect memory, language, and learning.
• Parental Self-Care in the Hospital — Get self-care tips from experts at UPMC Children's.

Who Can Benefit from the Healing Hearts Program?

Any parent or family member dealing with the diagnosis of a child’s congenital (present at birth) heart disorder can benefit from the Healing Hearts program.

We welcome parents to contact us!

To learn more, follow us on Instagram @CHP_Healing_Hearts or on YouTube @chphealinghearts1042. Or email us at perinatalcardiology@upmc.edu.