Heart
Did you know that your whole heart is actually a muscle?
It is a powerful muscle which pumps blood around your
body so that each cell gets the nutrients and oxygen it
needs. The heart is hollow and is around the size of your
fist and it sits behind your ribs.
Your heart has two sides – the lefthand side and the right-hand side.
The left-hand side draws in blood
filled with oxygen from your lungs
and pumps it out again, around the
rest of your body through arteries and
capillaries. This blood is a bright red
colour. The heart's rhythmic pumping
ensures that blood arrives in all parts
of the body. The right-hand side of
the heart takes in 'used' blood and
sends it back to the lungs to collect
more oxygen. This blood contains
something called carbon dioxide which
gets breathed out when it reaches the
lungs. This blood is a darker red colour.
The heart has four chambers– the
left ventricle and left atrium and right
ventricle and right atrium. The left
ventricle and right ventricle are at the
bottom of the heart and the left atrium
and right atrium are at the top. There \H