What is dextrocardia?

Dextrocardia is an abnormal congenital positioning of the heart in which, instead of the heart forming in the fetus on the left side, it flips over and forms on the right. There are several types of this condition, also called looping defects. It is frequently diagnosed in a routine prenatal sonogram, although not every radiologist will catch it, particularly if there are no cardiac structural abnormalities.

Mirror image dextrocardia is a very rare condition, present in about one in 130,000 people. In this looping defect, not only does the heart flip the wrong way and develop on the wrong side of the chest, but also all the other organs in the middle of the body are reversed. In essence, an X-ray of someone with this problem looks like a mirror image of the normal heart and organ placement.