Did your doctor say you have a heart murmur? Here is what that funny whooshing sound actually means for your health.

Imagine sitting in a doctor office for a routine checkup. The doctor gently places a cold stethoscope against your chest and listens closely. Suddenly, they pause and look up with a calm smile. They tell you they hear an extra whooshing or swishing sound alongside your normal heartbeat. Naturally, your heart might skip a beat out of worry. What does this strange sound mean?

If a doctor tells you or your child has a heart murmur, it can sound quite frightening. However, it is important to know that many murmurs are entirely harmless. They do not always mean you have a dangerous heart condition. Let us explore what a heart murmur is, why it happens, and what steps you should take next.

What Is a Heart Murmur?

Your heart acts as a powerful pump that keeps blood moving steadily through your body. As it beats, its internal valves open and close tightly to direct blood flow. These closing valves create the familiar lub-dub sounds that doctors hear with a stethoscope. Normally, blood flows through your heart in a smooth and quiet pattern.

Sometimes, blood flows a bit faster or in a slightly rough pattern that creates extra vibration. Instead of just a clean lub-dub sound, the doctor hears a whoosh or a swish. This extra sound is what we call a heart murmur. It simply tells your doctor that blood is moving across a heart valve or chamber with a bit of turbulence.

A doctor listens through a stethoscope to detect subtle changes in heart sounds.

Is a Heart Murmur Common?

Yes, heart murmurs are remarkably common. You might be surprised to learn that many people have an innocent murmur at some point in their lives. Children often have them as they grow and develop rapidly. Adults can also experience them during periods of high physical activity, fever, or pregnancy. Hearing this diagnosis does not automatically mean you have a serious medical emergency.

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Are There Different Types of Heart Murmurs?

Doctors classify heart murmurs based on when the extra sound occurs during your heartbeat cycle. The heart beats in distinct phases of squeezing and relaxing. Understanding the exact timing helps medical professionals figure out what might be causing the turbulent blood flow.

Here are the primary types of heart murmurs:

• Systolic Murmurs: These sounds occur when your heart muscle squeezes to push blood out to your body and lungs.
• Diastolic Murmurs: These sounds occur when your heart muscle relaxes and refills with blood between beats.
• Continuous Murmurs: These sounds persist throughout the entire heart cycle, spanning both squeezing and relaxing phases.

Diastolic and continuous murmurs are more often linked to underlying heart conditions. However, every single heart murmur deserves a thorough medical evaluation by a qualified doctor to ensure your heart remains healthy and strong.

How Loud Is a Heart Murmur?

You cannot hear a heart murmur with your own ears. A doctor must use a stethoscope because it amplifies the subtle sounds inside your chest. To describe how prominent the sound is, doctors use a grading scale from 1 to 6.

Here is what the grading scale means:

• Grade 1: Very faint. You can barely hear it, and only a quiet room with an expert listener will pick it up.
• Grade 2: Faint, but easy to hear as soon as the doctor places the stethoscope on your chest.
• Grade 3: Moderately loud sound that is easy for any doctor to hear right away.
• Grade 4: Loud sound that often comes with a gentle physical vibration felt on the chest wall.
• Grade 5: Very loud sound that doctors can hear even when the stethoscope barely touches your skin.
• Grade 6: Extremely loud sound that you can hear even if the stethoscope is held slightly off your chest.

What Causes a Heart Murmur?

As mentioned earlier, murmurs happen when blood flows with turbulence rather than smooth silence. This can stem from normal physical states or specific medical conditions that affect your heart structure.

How Innocent Heart Murmurs Happen.

An innocent heart murmur happens when blood moves through your heart faster than usual. Doctors also call these normal or physiologic murmurs. They do not stem from any disease or structural heart defect. They are completely harmless and require zero treatment.

Innocent murmurs often appear during these common life stages and situations:

• During Childhood: Kids have smaller chests and faster heart rates, making harmless murmurs very common.
• During Exercise: Strenuous physical activity makes your heart pump blood faster, temporarily creating a whooshing sound.
• Growth Spurts: Rapid physical growth in teenagers can alter chest dimensions and blood flow velocity.
• During Pregnancy: A pregnant woman body pumps a much larger volume of blood, which often creates temporary murmurs.
• In Newborn Babies: Tiny infants often have harmless murmurs during their first few days of life as their circulatory system adjusts.

Innocent murmurs can come and go over time. They often grow louder when your heart beats faster, such as when you have a fever. The most comforting fact to remember is that an innocent murmur means your heart is entirely healthy.

Heart Murmurs Caused by Medical Conditions.

Other heart murmurs point to an underlying medical issue or a structural problem inside the heart. Identifying these causes helps doctors provide the right care.

• Anemia: When your blood lacks enough healthy red blood cells, its thickness changes. This altered blood flow can create a murmur. You might also feel constantly exhausted and weak. Imagine a patient named Emily who felt too tired to finish her daily tasks. Her doctor ran blood tests, found severe anemia, and noticed a temporary murmur that vanished once her iron levels returned to normal.
• Carcinoid Syndrome and Carcinoid Heart Disease: These rare, slow-growing tumors release extra hormones into your bloodstream. Over time, these hormones can damage heart valves. Other signs include weight loss, abdominal cramps, diarrhea, and low blood pressure.
• Congenital Heart Defects: Some people are born with structural heart problems. Examples include a hole in the heart wall or complex conditions like Tetralogy of Fallot. These anatomical variations alter normal blood pathways.
• Endocarditis: This is a dangerous infection of the inner heart lining and valves. Bacteria or other germs enter the bloodstream and attack delicate valve tissue. Patients often experience high fevers, chills, skin rashes, and sore throats.
• Heart Valve Disease: Your heart valves can stiffen up, preventing them from opening fully. Alternatively, they might fail to close tightly, allowing blood to leak backward. These valve problems create noticeable murmurs. People often experience swollen ankles, a racing heartbeat, shortness of breath, and chest tightness.
• Hyperthyroidism: An overactive thyroid gland produces too much thyroid hormone. This speeds up your entire metabolism. Symptoms include nervousness, increased appetite, rapid heartbeat, and unexpected weight loss.
• Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy: This genetic condition causes the heart muscle to become abnormally thick and stiff. It can restrict smooth blood flow. Warning signs include fainting spells, chest pain, palpitations, severe fatigue, and shortness of breath.

Anatomical view of heart valves that regulate smooth, unidirectional blood flow.

What Are the Symptoms of a Heart Murmur?

Many people with a heart murmur experience zero symptoms. They live completely normal lives and only discover the murmur during a routine checkup.

However, if your murmur stems from an underlying medical condition, you might notice symptoms such as:

• A bluish tint to your skin, lips, or fingernails due to low oxygen.
• A persistent, ongoing cough.
• A pounding or racing heartbeat, known as palpitations.
• Chest pain, pressure, or tightness.
• Shortness of breath during normal daily activities.
• Sudden fainting spells or overwhelming weakness.

How Do Doctors Diagnose a Heart Murmur?

A doctor diagnoses a heart murmur by listening closely to your chest with a stethoscope. If they hear that telltale whooshing sound, they will investigate further to understand its exact nature.

During a stethoscope exam, the doctor listens to different areas of your chest and back. They pay close attention to several key details:

• Do they hear an extra sound alongside the normal lub-dub?
• What is the pitch and tone of the sound?
• Is your heart rhythm steady and regular?
• At what exact moment in the heartbeat cycle does the sound happen?
• How loud is the murmur on the grading scale?

Your doctor might ask you to change positions while they listen. They could ask you to squat, sit up, lie down, or make a tight fist with your hands. These simple physical maneuvers alter your blood flow and help doctors identify the exact origin of the sound.

What Tests Will a Doctor Order?

If your doctor hears an abnormal murmur, they will likely order further tests. They may also refer you to a cardiologist, who is a heart specialist. These diagnostic tools reveal the exact reason behind the sound:

• Chest X-ray: This imaging test takes pictures of your chest cavity. It helps doctors check the size of your heart and look for fluid buildup in your lungs.
• Echocardiogram: Often called an echo, this is essentially an ultrasound of your heart. It uses harmless sound waves to create moving pictures of your heart chambers and valves. It shows how well your heart pumps blood. Doctors can perform it on your chest wall or use a specialized tube inserted down your throat for a closer look.
• Electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG): This quick, painless test measures the electrical signals traveling through your heart. It helps spot irregular heart rhythms or signs of past heart strain.

How Is a Heart Murmur Treated?

Most heart murmurs require zero treatment. Innocent murmurs are completely harmless and disappear on their own or remain stable without causing any health problems.

However, if your murmur stems from a serious underlying condition, you will need targeted medical care:

• medicines: Doctors prescribe specific drugs depending on the root cause. For example, iron supplements treat anemia, while other medicines help regulate thyroid hormone levels or control blood pressure.
• Surgical Procedures: In cases of severe valve disease or congenital defects, surgery may be necessary to repair or replace a damaged heart valve.

Can You Prevent a Heart Murmur?

You cannot prevent a heart murmur because many causes are genetic or present at birth. Other murmurs develop as a natural result of physical growth or temporary body states.

However, you can protect your overall heart health. Regular checkups, a nutritious diet rich in whole foods, regular physical activity, and avoiding tobacco use all help prevent serious cardiovascular diseases down the road.

What Is the Long-Term Outlook?

Your long-term health outlook depends entirely on what causes your heart murmur. Children with innocent murmurs usually outgrow them as they reach adulthood. Murmurs related to pregnancy typically disappear soon after childbirth.

If your murmur connects to a heart condition, timely medical treatment makes a tremendous difference. Following your doctor guidance ensures you maintain an active and vibrant lifestyle.

Sources & References:

• Mayo Clinic. (2026). Heart murmur - Symptoms and causes. Retrieved from Mayo Clinic Patient Care Guide.
• Cleveland Clinic. (2025). Heart Murmurs: Causes, Types & Treatment. Retrieved from Cleveland Clinic Health Library.
• National Health Service (NHS). (2025). Heart murmur overview. Retrieved from NHS UK Health Information.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2024). Heart Valve Disorders and Patient Education. Retrieved from CDC Heart Disease Division.
• National Institutes of Health (NIH) / PubMed Central. (2025). Clinical evaluation and auscultation of physiological and pathological heart murmurs. PMCID: PMC412958.