Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Birth Defects Cluster – Rural Washington Anencephaly

Birth Defects Cluster – Rural Washington Anencephaly:



A three-county area in rural Washington is the site of an unsolved birth defects cluster, with at least two dozen babies in the Yakima area born with anencephaly.



 Health officials are stumped, having reviewed environmental and medical factors that might link the cases. Typically fatal to a child, anencephaly is caused by the failure of the neural tube to completely close around the spine while the fetus develops – a process that is normally finished at six weeks of pregnancy. 



Babies are born missing large parts of their skull and brain and seldom survive. While exact numbers have yet to be released, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recorded 23 infants born with anencephaly in the past three years in the tri-county area, a figure that is four times greater than the U.S. average.



 Since this figure was released in January 2013, some nine other babies with neural tube defects, including spina bifida, have been reported at the Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital by one of their genetics counselors. 



Babies born with neural tube defects in Yakima area Based on average national statistics, the CDC and public health officials anticipate only a couple of anencephaly cases among the 10,000 yearly births in Yakima, Franklin and Benton counties. Yet in 2012, officials found at least 12 incidents. - 

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