Congenital heart defects are among the most frequent congenital anomalies with severe impact on mortality and morbidity. Screening of many congenital anomalies of other organs in the last several decades has resulted in the increase of detection rate but not in the case of heart defects. It is clear that screening of the heart defects should be performed by the medical professionals who care for most of the pregnant women while diagnosis of heart defects should be done by experts in fetal echocardiography who should also specify what kind of heart defect the fetus has. Fetal Heart: Screening, Diagnosis, and Intervention is giving the means for the screening of the heart defect in both first and second trimesters. The interested readers will find much useful practical information about how to perform prenatal fetal heart screening systematically. Complex aspects of complete care for the patients with heart disease are clearly described and discussed in this very useful and user-friendly monograph dedicated to healthcare professionals caring for the pregnant women at the basic level of care, performing prenatal anomaly scan screening.

Fetal Heart: Screening, Diagnosis, and Intervention is prepared for obstetricians who are dealing daily clinical workup and dedicating their time for and to give a better antenatal care to their pregnant patients. With the improvement of technical quality and more scientific evidence, ultrasound evaluation is not an imaging modality in Obstetrics and Gynecology anymore. Ultrasound is a tool that is giving an opportunity to use every examination methods such as inspection, palpation, percussion, auscultation, and additional measurable parameters to evaluate the fetus and the mother. Ultrasound is a technology for obstetricians to see and measure things to establish the normal morphological and circulation anatomy, growth, etc. If there is something wrong or abnormal or out of limits, then we can make dedicated examination and management for this matter. On the hand of obstetrician and gynecologist, ultrasound is not an imaging tool but an examination tool. For this reason, obstetricians have to be able to competent how to look at, evaluate, and measure of fetal organs, systems, embryonal and fetal evolution at every stage for anatomy, physiology, pathophysiology, diagnosis, intervention, and management. If the problem needs more competence and experience, a perinatal expert could be consulted or referred.

Congenital heart defects (CHDs) are among the most prevalent congenital malformations in the mankind and at the same time, their prenatal diagnosis is very often missed in developed and developing countries. Two very important issues concerning the prenatal detection of CHD are prenatal screening and prenatal diagnosis. Screening of CHD belongs to those who make prenatal ultrasound screening of congenital malformations, while a prenatal diagnosis of CHD belongs to experts in fetal echocardiography who can recognize the morphology and the hemodynamics of CHD. In both situations (i.e. screening and diagnosis), one should be informed about basics of the heart embryology in order to better understand anatomy and morphology of the fetal heart. Book in front of you is offering you means to learn how to screen fetal heart to make a distinction between normal and abnormal findings and at the same time, it is giving information on the sophisticated diagnostic approach to fetal CHD in case of positive screening. After the diagnosis of fetal CHD, the counseling is taking place in order to better predict the future of the fetus/infant and entire family. Genetic counseling is very important as well and should be taken into consideration, if indicated. After the diagnosis of fetal CHD, the treatment plan should be made and parents should be asked concerning the preferences of pregnancy termination, prenatal and postnatal treatment. In order to enable the parents to make the best possible choice, one should be aware of the postnatal outcome of severe and hemodynamically significant CHD. The parents should always be informed about the restrains of our counseling and should be given the best information possible in terms of short- and long-term postnatal outcome of the child with severe and hemodynamically significant CHD.

Finally, we are thankful to Shri Jitendar P Vij (Group Chairman), Mr Ankit Vij (Managing Director), Mr MS Mani (Group President), Ms Chetna Malhotra Vohra (Associate Director—Content Strategy), Ms Pooja Bhandari (Production Head) and Ms Prerna Bajaj (Development Editor) of M/s Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers (P) Ltd, New Delhi, India, for giving a go-ahead at the very beginning and helping us in every way possible to bring out this book.