Best Paediatric Cardiologists in India

1. When to Seek Help Urgently

Read this section first. Some signs in a baby or child need assessment the same day rather than at the next appointment.

Take your child to an emergency department or call emergency services if you see:

• Blue or grey discolouration of the lips, tongue, gums or nail beds

• Breathing that is fast, laboured, or accompanied by grunting or drawing in at the ribs

• Episodes where the child turns blue, becomes limp, or is difficult to rouse

• A baby who tires or sweats heavily during feeds and cannot finish them

• Sudden collapse, fainting, or a seizure

• Cold, mottled skin with poor responsiveness

Get an urgent appointment, rather than an emergency one, if your child is not gaining weight as expected, tires far more easily than other children the same age, or has chest pain or palpitations on exertion.

Most children with a murmur turn out to have nothing wrong. That reassurance belongs after the list above, not before it, because the signs above can mean a duct closing in a newborn or a defect that needs treatment quickly.

2. Paediatric Cardiology Is Not Adult Cardiology

This distinction matters more than any other on this page. Paediatric cardiologists and paediatric cardiac surgeons train separately and practise separately from their adult counterparts.

A child's heart is not a small adult heart. The conditions differ, since most children's heart disease is present from birth while most adult heart disease is acquired. The anaesthesia differs, the intensive care differs, the equipment is sized differently, and follow-up runs across decades of growth.

Seniority in adult cardiac surgery does not transfer. If you are offered an adult cardiac surgeon for your child, ask directly how many operations they perform on children of your child's age and weight each year, and consider a second opinion.

3. What Paediatric Cardiology Covers

Two kinds of problem, handled by the same team:

• Congenital heart disease, meaning structural differences present from birth, which is the larger share of the work

• Acquired heart disease in childhood, including rheumatic heart disease, inflammation of the heart muscle, and rhythm disorders

The team also follows children who have already been treated, sometimes for many years, and manages those who reach adulthood with a repaired congenital heart. That transition is a recognised area of care in its own right.

4. How Heart Conditions in Children Are Found

There are four common routes to diagnosis, and which applies affects how urgent things feel.

Before birth. Fetal echocardiography can identify many structural defects during pregnancy, which allows delivery and treatment to be planned in advance rather than managed as an emergency.

In the first days of life. Newborn examination and pulse oximetry screening detect a proportion of significant defects before a baby leaves hospital. Pulse oximetry has been studied as a screening tool in Indian newborns and is used in many units.

In infancy or childhood. A murmur heard at a routine check, poor weight gain, breathlessness on feeding or exertion, or repeated chest infections may lead to referral.

Later, sometimes in adolescence or adulthood. Some defects cause no symptoms for years and are found incidentally or when exercise tolerance falls.

5. Conditions Commonly Treated

The list below is not exhaustive, and the same named condition varies enormously in severity between children. What follows is orientation, not a substitute for your child's diagnosis.

Holes between the chambers

Atrial septal defect and ventricular septal defect are openings between the chambers of the heart. Many small ones close on their own and need only monitoring. Larger ones can be closed with a device passed through a catheter, or surgically, depending on the size and position.

Patent ductus arteriosus

A vessel that normally closes soon after birth remains open. In premature babies it may be managed medically or closed with a catheter procedure. In older children closure is usually a simple procedure.

Tetralogy of Fallot

A combination of four features that reduces blood flow to the lungs, and one cause of what is described as a blue baby. Complete surgical repair is usually undertaken in the first two years, sometimes earlier, and the timing depends on the child's oxygen levels and anatomy. Surgical repair of tetralogy of Fallot sets out what the operation involves and the recovery it needs.

Transposition of the great arteries

The two main arteries leaving the heart are connected the wrong way round. This needs treatment in the newborn period, and the definitive operation, the arterial switch operation, is time-critical rather than elective.

Narrowings and valve problems

Coarctation of the aorta, and narrowing of the pulmonary or aortic valve, may be treated by balloon dilation through a catheter or by surgery. Some valves need replacing later, and some children need more than one procedure across childhood.

Single ventricle conditions

Where only one pumping chamber functions adequately, treatment is usually staged across several operations in the first years of life rather than corrected in one. The final stage is commonly the Fontan procedure, which redirects blood to the lungs without passing through a pumping chamber.

Families should understand that this is palliation rather than cure. It substantially improves oxygen levels and quality of life, and these children need lifelong specialist follow-up with a recognised set of long-term complications to watch for.

Rhythm disorders

Abnormally fast or slow rhythms may be managed with medication, with a catheter procedure, or occasionally with a pacemaker. They can occur in an otherwise structurally normal heart.

Rheumatic heart disease

Damage to the heart valves following untreated streptococcal throat infection and rheumatic fever. It remains a significant cause of childhood heart disease in parts of Africa and South Asia, and it is preventable.

Where a child has had rheumatic fever, long-term preventive antibiotic treatment reduces the chance of further attacks and further valve damage. Ask specifically about this, because it continues for years and needs arranging at home rather than in India.

6. Tests Your Child May Need

Most of these are painless, and none requires an anaesthetic except where stated:

• Pulse oximetry, a probe on the hand or foot measuring oxygen levels

• Echocardiography, an ultrasound of the heart, which is the main diagnostic test

• Electrocardiogram, recording the heart's electrical activity through stickers on the chest

• Chest X-ray

• Blood tests

• Cardiac MRI or CT, in selected cases, sometimes requiring sedation in young children

• Cardiac catheterisation, a thin tube passed through a vessel to measure pressures or treat a defect, performed under sedation or anaesthesia

Ask which tests are needed before travel and which can only be done in India. Repeating investigations your child has already had is avoidable, and avoiding it spares them discomfort as well as cost.

7. Records to Send Before You Travel

A remote opinion is only as good as the documents behind it. Send:

• Any fetal scan reports, if the condition was found before birth

• All echocardiography reports, and the image files or video loops where you can obtain them

• Electrocardiogram tracings

• Chest X-ray and any MRI or CT images

• Cardiac catheterisation reports, if performed

• Oxygen saturation readings, and how they change with feeding or activity

• Growth records, meaning weight and height plotted over time

• Operative notes from any previous heart procedure

• A current list of medicines with doses

• Details of any other medical condition or syndrome

Growth records matter more than parents expect. Weight and how it has tracked often influence both whether an operation is advisable now and how it will be conducted.

8. Treatment Routes, Including Doing Nothing Yet

Three broad routes, and the third is a genuine option rather than a delay.

Monitoring. Many small defects close on their own or never cause difficulty. Where that is likely, the right course is regular review rather than intervention, and an operation avoided is a complication avoided.

Catheter procedures. A thin tube passed through a vessel in the groin can close some holes with a device, widen narrowed valves or vessels with a balloon, or place a stent. No chest incision, shorter stay, quicker recovery.

Surgery. Open repair, usually with the heart temporarily supported by a bypass machine, for defects that cannot be treated through a catheter or where a complete repair is needed. Children's heart surgery in India covers the surgical pathway in more detail.

Which applies depends on the defect, its size and position, your child's age and weight, and what else is going on. Ask why the recommended route was chosen over the other two, and what the alternative would involve.

9. Why Timing Matters So Much in Children

Timing is a bigger question in paediatric cardiology than in adult practice, and it cuts both ways.

Some conditions must be treated in the newborn period, and delay causes harm that cannot be undone. Transposition of the great arteries is the clearest example: the operation is time-critical rather than something to arrange at leisure.

Other conditions are better repaired once a child has grown, because a larger heart and larger vessels make the operation safer and the repair more durable. Waiting in those cases is a clinical decision rather than a queue.

Weight and nutrition affect this directly. Where a child is underweight, a unit may advise a period of feeding support before surgery. That is not a delaying tactic. Ask what weight or milestone they are working toward and why.

10. What the Operation Involves

For open surgery, the child is anaesthetised by a specialist in paediatric cardiac anaesthesia, and the heart is usually supported temporarily by a bypass machine while the repair is made.

Afterwards your child goes to a paediatric cardiac intensive care unit, often still on a breathing machine for a period, with lines and drains in place. This is expected rather than a sign something has gone wrong, and it is worth being told in advance what you will see.

Ask how long intensive care is anticipated, whether you can be with your child there and at what times, and who will speak to you each day. Knowing the routine before the day of surgery makes it considerably easier to live through.

11. Risks

Any operation on a child's heart carries risk, and the level differs enormously between a simple device closure and a staged repair in a newborn. Ask about your child's specific procedure rather than children's heart surgery generally.

No percentages appear here. Published figures vary by defect, by age, by weight, by the presence of other conditions and by how outcomes were defined, so a single number would mislead. Ask the unit for their own results for your child's operation, and for the definitions behind them.

Recognised risks include:

• Bleeding, sometimes requiring transfusion

• Infection, of the wound, the chest or the bloodstream

• Rhythm disturbances, which are sometimes temporary and occasionally need a pacemaker

• Fluid collecting around the heart or lungs

• Effects on the kidneys or other organs during a long operation

• Stroke or neurological injury, which is uncommon and serious

• The need for a further operation, either soon or years later

• Risks specific to your child's defect, which the surgeon should set out individually

Where a child has a syndrome or another medical condition, the risk picture changes and should be discussed in that context.

12. Recovery, Stage by Stage

Recovery varies with the procedure and the child, and small children often recover faster than parents expect while also having setbacks that look alarming and resolve.

Intensive care

Monitoring is continuous, sedation is used, and a breathing machine may be needed for a period. Lines, drains and monitoring leads are all normal at this stage.

The ward

Feeding is re-established, drains and lines come out progressively, and your child becomes more like themselves. Pain relief is managed actively, and you should ask how it is assessed in a child too young to describe it.

Going home from hospital

You will be given wound care instructions, a medicine schedule, feeding guidance, and clear signs that mean you should seek help. Get all of it in writing before discharge, and check you understand what each medicine is for.

The weeks after

Activity is usually restricted for a period, particularly anything involving the chest, and nursery or school return is staged. Appetite and sleep often take weeks to settle.

Sternal precautions

After open surgery the breastbone needs weeks to knit. You will be told not to lift your child under the arms for roughly six to eight weeks, and to lift from the bottom instead. Car seat and carrier arrangements are explained before discharge, and this restriction is worth practising before the operation.

Before flying home

Your child needs written clearance to fly, and it is not automatic. Plan for far longer than the hospital stay alone.

For a catheter procedure, a short stay of around a week is often enough. For open repair of a defect such as tetralogy of Fallot, published guidance for our partner centres indicates ten to sixteen days in hospital followed by a further two to four weeks of outpatient monitoring, so four to six weeks in the country in total, and six to eight weeks for complex variants or repeat surgery.

For staged single ventricle surgery such as a Fontan completion, plan on fourteen to twenty-one days in hospital and six to ten weeks in the country before long-haul clearance.

Clearance depends on oxygen saturation, resolved fluid collections, a healed wound, stable medication and adequate feeding. Ask for the expected timeline in writing before booking any return flight, and budget for it to extend.

13. Follow-up Runs for Years, Not Months

Congenital heart disease is followed across childhood and often into adult life, even after a successful repair. Some children need a further procedure years later, and some valves need replacing as the child grows.

Before you leave India, obtain the operation note, the discharge summary, all imaging, a medicine list with doses, and a written follow-up schedule stating which reviews and scans fall due and when. Your paediatrician or cardiologist at home will work from these.

Establish who is responsible for what. Ask whether the Indian unit will review echocardiograms sent from home, at what intervals, and how that is arranged. A child treated abroad with no follow-up plan is the outcome to avoid.

14. Paediatric Heart Transplant and the Law

Heart transplantation in children is performed at a small number of Indian centres and is reserved for situations where no repair is possible.

Organ donation in India is governed by law and organs cannot be bought or sold under any circumstances. Any agent suggesting an organ can be purchased or a donor arranged for payment is describing a crime. Walk away and report it.

Where a child is the potential donor, additional legal and ethical protections apply, and consent rests with the parents or legal guardians under a defined process. No family should feel pressure in that situation, and any suggestion of payment or inducement is unlawful.

If transplantation has been raised for your child, ask which centre, what the assessment process involves, what the waiting position realistically is, and what happens if a donor organ does not become available.

15. Choosing a Team, Not Just a Surgeon

For a child's heart operation the unit matters more than any individual. Weigh these:

• Whether children's cardiac care is a distinct unit or part of adult cardiac services

• The surgeon's volume of your child's specific repair, at your child's age and weight

• Whether there is a dedicated paediatric cardiac anaesthetist

• Whether the intensive care unit is paediatric and cardiac, staffed by intensivists rather than shared cover

• Nursing ratios and whether the nurses are specialist paediatric cardiac nurses

• Availability of extracorporeal support if a child deteriorates after surgery

• Whether cases go before a joint cardiology and surgery meeting

• Arrangements for follow-up from your home country

• How clearly the team explains uncertainty and raises risk unprompted

• Whether one named person will speak to you daily during intensive care

Years of experience alone tells you very little here, and a long adult cardiac career tells you almost nothing.

16. Questions to Ask Before You Consent

Ask for written answers, particularly if you are travelling.

• What exactly is my child's diagnosis, and can you show me on the images?

• How many of this specific repair does this unit perform each year?

• How many at my child's age and weight?

• Is a catheter procedure possible instead of surgery, and why is it or is it not?

• What happens if we wait, and how long can we safely wait?

• Is my child's weight or nutrition a factor, and should that be addressed first?

• Who will anaesthetise my child, and are they a paediatric cardiac anaesthetist?

• Who staffs the intensive care unit overnight?

• How long do you expect intensive care and total hospital stay to be?

• What are the risks specific to this repair for this child?

• Will my child need further operations later in life?

• What medicines will my child go home on, and for how long?

• What is the follow-up schedule, and can you review scans we send from home?

• What are the signs that mean we should seek help urgently after discharge?

• What happens, and who pays, if a complication develops while we are still in India?

17. Practical Planning for a Family

This is a different kind of trip from an adult procedure, and the practicalities are worth settling early.

Both parents should be able to travel where possible. India's medical visa route allows for accompanying attendants, generally up to two, applied for alongside the child's medical visa, and it requires a hospital invitation letter and cost estimate. Ask us to arrange those documents to cover everyone travelling.

Requirements differ by nationality, and some countries require an in-person embassy application rather than the online route. Check yours early, because it changes how much notice you need.

Accommodation should be close to the hospital rather than central, and for a stay of two to three weeks somewhere with a kitchen makes a real difference when a child is unwell and eating poorly. Consider what to do about siblings before you commit to dates.

Ask the hospital about parent facilities: whether you can stay overnight on the ward, visiting arrangements in intensive care, and whether there is somewhere to prepare food or express milk.

18. Travelling With a Child From Abroad

A substantial share of the children we help travel from East and Southern Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and Central Asia, where congenital heart services are well established in some countries and limited in others.

Country guides covering flights, visa documents and costs:

• Bringing a child from Iraq

• Bringing a child from Oman

• Bringing a child from Bangladesh

• Bringing a child from Turkmenistan

• Bringing a child from Tanzania

• Bringing a child from Kenya

• Bringing a child from Zambia

• Bringing a child from Zimbabwe

• Bringing a child from Ghana

• Bringing a child from South Sudan

Interpreters are available in Arabic, Bengali, Russian, French and Kiswahili among others, and should be arranged before you arrive rather than requested on the day.

Where a service exists closer to home, using it is usually better for a child. Travel earns its place for complex repairs, for defects needing a team that performs them frequently, or where waiting locally would put a child at risk.

Medical Review

Medically reviewed by: Dr. Shabnam

Credentials: BDS 5 Years of Experience in Medical Content Writing and Reviewing

Last reviewed: July 2026

Prepared with reference to published paediatric cardiology guidance and peer-reviewed literature on congenital heart disease and newborn screening.

Content review: Abdul Azeem, MA (Public Health specialisation). Editorial review only, not clinical review.