A fatal birth defect
A mother gave birth to a baby boy without the front portion of his skull in Banshkhali Upazila Health Complex of Chittagong on the morning of December 23.
The newborn with this rare birth defect died the next morning.
“The boy had face, mouth and all the other parts except for his front portion of the skull, meaning a portion of the brain was absent,” said Dr Zinat Sharmin, medical officer of the health complex.
The birth defect is clinically termed “anencephaly”, which means congenital absence of all or a major part of the brain.
“We call it congenital anomaly due to neural tube defect,” she added.
“Such babies usually do not survive. In our country there is no evidence of survival of babies with anencephaly while in developed countries, the survival rate is below one percent even when artificial mechanism is applied,” she said.
An expecting mother suffering from folic acid deficiency is likely to give birth to a baby with anomaly, said Dr Zinat, adding, “Such defect can be detected earlier in prenatal check-up, especially through ultra-sonogram.”
“In such cases, we counsel the parents for abortion as the survival rate of the babies is meagre,” she said, adding, “This mother did not do any prenatal check-up and so the case was not detected earlier.”
Jannatul Nayem, 23, wife of Abdur Rahman, a farmer of Napora village in Banshkhali upazila, gave birth to the baby through vaginal delivery. They lost their child on the way to Chittagong Medical College Hospital. The couple has a five-year-old boy.
About reasons that cause such anomaly, Dr Jagadish Chandra Das, head of the neonatal department of CMCH, said radiation and folic acid deficiency are the vital causes.
Talking to The Daily Star, Prof Shanara Chowdhury, head of gynaecology department of Chittagong Medical College, said worldwide three out of 1,000 expecting mothers are likely to give birth to babies with anencephaly.
She could not give any national figure of the prevalence of this condition, but said at CMCH, 1,990 babies were born in November 2017. Twenty-three of them had various birth defects including two with anencephaly. Usually, pregnant women are advised to take doses of folic acid to avoid giving birth to babies with this condition, she said. In cases of planned pregnancy, women have to take folic acid pills when they start planning for a baby, said Prof Shahanara.
She also said a balanced diet prevents the foetus from developing this condition. Expecting mothers could also have folic acid-rich food like broccoli, green leafy vegetables, and liver, she added.
Doctors suspect that the mother had folic acid deficit as the couple was poor, and the woman did not take any medication during pregnancy.
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