blue baby

Blue baby syndrome (or simply, blue baby) is a layman's term used to describe newborn babies with cyanotic heart defects, such as
 is Tetralogy of Fallot.

•  In the normal heart, there are four separate chambers; the two top chambers, or atria, pump blood simultaneously into the two bottom chambers, or ventricles. Blood first enters the heart at the right atrium, which then empties blood into the right ventricle, which pumps the blood into the lungs through the pulmonary artery to get oxygen. From the lungs, the blood enters the left atrium through the pulmonary vein; the left atrium empties into the left ventricle, which pumps the blood into the aorta and from there reaches the rest of the body. Because the left ventricle is responsible for getting blood to the entire body through the aorta, it is usually the biggest and strongest chamber of the heart.

The following is a depiction of normal blood flow through the body. Valves keep the blood from flowing backwards. Capital letters indicate oxygenated blood:

After the body uses up the oxygen delivered by the blood flowing through the arteries, then arterioles, then capillaries, the unoxygenated blood returns to the heart by the capillaries, then venules, then veins.
The blue baby syndrome known as Tetralogy of Fallot consists of an incomplete wall between the ventricles (known as a ventricular septal defect or VSD); an aorta that sits over this defect so that its blood comes from both ventricles instead of just from the left (overriding aorta); a defective right ventricular outflow tract near the pulmonary valve that prevents full flow of blood to the lungs; and a muscular right ventricle necessary to accomplish the extra work required to overcome that defect (right ventricular hypertrophy).