How does blood flow through the heart?

How does blood flow through the heart?

Knowing how blood flows through your heart can make it easier to understand an atrioventricular canal defect.

Your heart has four chambers: two upper chambers (atria) and two lower chambers (ventricles). Valves with flaps connect the upper and lower chambers. The right chambers pump blood from your body to your lungs. The left chambers carry blood from your lungs back to your body. .

A wall (the septum) separates the right and left sides of your heart, which helps keep blood flowing in the right direction. But an atrioventricular canal defect means there’s a hole in the wall. It’s like a pipe with a leak. In most cases, the hole allows too much blood to flow backward into your lungs and not enough blood flows forward to the rest of your body. If the hole is present for a long time, the flow may go the opposite direction, with more blood going to your body than to your lungs.