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The Normal Heart
In order to understand what a complex heart condition
means, it is helpful to understand what the normal heart does. The heart’s job
is to pump blood around the body. There are two separate circulations; the first
takes blood to the lungs (the right side of the heart), and the second takes
blood to the body (the left side of the heart).
This is how the journey begins: blood returns from the body, via veins, to the
right side of the heart into a collecting chamber called the right atrium. This
blood has a bluish tinge (blue blood) because the body has extracted oxygen
from it (deoxygenated blood).
The blood is then passed through a valve (Tricuspid) to a pumping chamber (Right
Ventricle), which pumps the blood to the lungs via the lung arteries (Pulmonary
Arteries).
The blood picks up oxygen as it passes through the lungs which turns the blood
a red colour (oxygenated blood). This blood then returns to the left collecting
chamber (Left Atrium) and it then passes through the Valve (Mitral) to the left
pumping chamber (Left Ventricle). The Left Ventricle then pumps blood to the
body through the Valve (Aortic) and to the body via the body artery (Aorta).
The body uses the oxygen from the blood turning it blue again. And the journey
starts again.
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