Heart Beat

Hi Moms,

My son is 21mths and has a pacemaker with a natural heart beat of 33-44 Bpm.He is paced 100% of the time.

The normal heart pulse rate for a child depends on the child's age. For an infant child who is less than one year old the normal heart rate is 100 and 160 beats per minute. For kids aged between one year and ten years the normal heart rate is between 70 and 120 beats per minute. Teenagers usually have a normal heart rate of between 60 to 100 beats per minute

Question;

As my son gets older,will his normal heart beat drop below 30-44 Bpm or will it remain the same as he gets older?

Appreciate your response...


2 Comments

heart rate

by Pacemum - 2014-01-22 05:01:51

As your son is now paced the pacemaker will not let his heart rate drop below the minimum setting. They change the thresholds of the pacemaker as your son grows.

My daughters lower pacemaker limit has been set at 60 for a long time and up to now we have had no problem with the lower setting. We do not know exactly what her natural beat is (if any), only that it is below 30. At checks they turn the pacemaker down to 30 which is the lowest they like to go and see if the normal heart beat kicks in.

The upper rate is the one that we have had more alterations made. This is due to exercise needs as some children can have a heart rate of over 200 when exercising and most pacemakers can not go over 190. We have found that as my daughter grows the upper setting is the one which has the most impact for her.

sinus node

by Tracey_E - 2014-01-22 08:01:39

With av block, our sinus node (nature's pacemaker) works normally but the signal doesn't get to the ventricles so they beat at random and we have a low pulse. The pm watches for the atria to beat, if the ventricle doesn't beat it paces and causes a beat. The pm is following the heart's lead so his pulse will be whatever his natural atrial rate is. As it slows down with age, so will his pulse.

If for some reason his atrial rate dropped below the minimum setting on the pm, usually 50 or 60, the pm would kick in with atrial pacing, but that doesn't happen very often with av block. As Pacemum said, upper limit is the one that affects us. The pm will only pace as high as the upper limit so it's important to keep the upper limit set above whatever rate we get to on exertion. That number will change over time, but it's easy to adjust the pm to meet his needs.

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