More babies are being born with organs outside their bodies, and experts have no idea why

More babies are being born with organs outside their bodies, and experts have no idea why

By Sarah Kaplan January 22

(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

When Brooke gave birth, she wasn’t able to hold her newborn daughter against her, feel the baby’s tiny chest rise and fall as it issued its first, tremendous wail.

Instead, she got only a brief glimpse of her child, Anna, before the little girl was whisked away into surgery.

What she saw was disquieting: Her infant daughter’s intestines protruded outside her body, dark and slick and alien-looking. It would take a nerve-wracking operation and weeks in the intensive care unit until her internal organs were back were they belonged and baby Anna could finally come home, Brooke wrote for the CDC (the post does not give her last name).

Anna was born with gastroschisis, a rare birth defect that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said has become worryingly more common in recent years, particularly for young African American mothers.

In a report published Friday, the public health agency said that it found 30 percent more cases of the disease between 2006 and 2012 than it did from 1995 to 2005. Among African American mothers who were younger than 20, the number of babies born with the disease jumped 263 percent.

“It concerns us that we don’t know why more babies are being born with this serious birth defect. Public health research is urgently needed to figure out the cause and why certain women are at higher risk of having a baby born with gastroschisis,” Coleen Boyle, the director of CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, said in a statement.

Overall, about 2,000 U.S. babies are born each year with gastroschisis, according to the CDC report.

Though doctors have been familiar with gastroschisis for years, no one quite knows what causes infants to be born with their intestines and other visceral organs — the stomach, the liver — protruding through a small hole near their belly button. It’s more common to babies in younger mothers, according to the CDC, and low socio-economic status, low body mass index, poor nutrition, smoking and use of alcohol, illicit drugs and pain medicine are thought to be risk factors. Perhaps there is some harmful environmental factor that inhibits the development of the abdominal wall during pregnancy. Or perhaps the babies born with gastroschisis have some genetic defect that leaves them vulnerable.

CDC researchers will be looking into these indicators explain the sudden, significant increase in cases, particularly for African American mothers, who are typically less likely to be affected.

Still, the data in the report jibes with what doctors say that they’re experiencing day to day in their ICUs.

“Anecdotally, over the years, most neonatologists would agree we’ve seen a steady persistent increase in the number of babies we see each year with gastroschisis,” Dr. James Greenberg, co-director of the Perinatal Institute and director of Neonatology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, told CBS News.

Though gastroschisis is usually reparable with surgery, particularly if doctors are aware that the baby has the disease before he or she is born, it can cause long term health problems and in some cases life-threatening complications for the children born with it.

According to the Los Angeles Times, exposed organs are often irritated by the amniotic fluid that surrounds them. They may twist, swell, shorten or become infected or inflamed, making feeding and digestion difficult for newborns. Babies may also have trouble staying hydrated and taking in nutrients — the small intestine is where most digestion and nutrient absorption takes place — which puts them at risk of stunted growth and malnutrition.

Meanwhile, the surgery required to repair the opening — or several surgeries, depending on how many organs are exposed — means that babies spend many expensive and vulnerable weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit.

But most, including Anna, recover. The sick infant featured on the CDC website is now a healthy little girl. In a photo taken with her father, she gives a goofy half-grin while he holds out a picture from the moment she was born. There’s barely any resemblance at all.

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Brazil Zika outbreak: More babies born with birth defects

• 21 January 2016
• From the section Latin America & Caribbean

Image copyright AP

Image caption A 10-year-old Brazilian boy holds his two-month-old brother, who was born with microcephaly

Brazil says the number of babies born with suspected microcephaly or abnormally small heads since October has now reached nearly 4,000.

In the worst affected area, about 1% of newborns have suspected microcephaly.

The Brazilian authorities believe the increase is caused by an outbreak of Zika virus. Just 150 babies were born with microcephaly in 2014.

The brain condition can be deadly or cause intellectual disability and developmental delays.
Colombia's health minister has advised women there to delay pregnancy.

Brazil's health ministry says there have been 3,893 suspected cases of microcephaly since October, when the authorities first noticed a surge, up from 3,500 in last week's report.

The link with Zika has not been confirmed, but a small number of babies who died had the virus in their brain and no other explanation for the surge in microcephaly has been suggested.

Read more: The alarming threat of Zika virus

Mothers' fears amid Zika outbreak

Zika is generally mild and only causes symptoms in one in five people. It is spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which also spreads dengue and chikungunya.

Brazil is experiencing the largest known outbreak of Zika.

President Dilma Rousseff, visiting Recife in the worst-affected north-east of the country, said Brazilians needed to engage in the fight against the virus.

"Until we discover a vaccine, we will need to rely on the population to help us remove the conditions under which the mosquito reproduces," she said.

"In the meantime we need to provide all the assistance the children and their families require."

Forty-nine babies with suspected microcephaly have died, Brazil's health ministry says. In five of these cases an infection with Zika virus was found.

The Fiocruz research institute in Brazil says it has detected the virus in the placenta of a woman who miscarried in the first trimester of pregnancy - a step closer to establishing a clear link between the virus and the deformities affecting babies and foetuses.

Brazil's health ministry says that 90% of notified suspected cases of microcephaly are in the north-east - and 6% in the south-east, an area which includes Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.
Rio de Janeiro is due to host the Olympics in August. The country is expecting 10,500 international athletes and many more spectators to attend.

The worst affected states in the north-east - the poorest part of Brazil - are Paraiba, Pernambuco and Bahia.

In Paraiba, the health ministry says that the number of babies born with suspected microcephaly works out as 114 per 10,000 live births - or more than 1 in 100 of all newborns.

Last week, Brazilian Health Minister Marcelo Castro said a new testing kit was being developed to identify quickly the presence of any of the three viruses spread by the mosquito concerned - dengue, chikungunya and Zika.

He also announced extra funds to speed up the development of a vaccine for Zika.

At the moment the only way to fight Zika is to clear stagnant water where mosquitoes breed, and to protect against mosquito bites.

There has been a sharp rise in the number of cases of Zika in several other Latin American countries.
In Colombia, more than 13,500 cases have been reported.

"We are the second country [in Latin America] after Brazil in the number of reported cases," said Health Minister Alejandro Gaviria.

He has advised women in the country not to get pregnant for the rest of the outbreak which, he said, could last until July.

In Bolivia, the authorities have reported the first case of a pregnant woman diagnosed with Zika.
"She has not travelled outside the country," Joaquin Monasterio, health chief for the eastern department of Santa Cruz, told AFP news agency. "This is a home-grown case."

Image copyright AFP

Image caption The disease is transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an alert last Friday advising pregnant women to consider postponing travel to Brazil and other Latin American and Caribbean countries where outbreaks of Zika have been registered.

The travel alert applies to Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname, Venezuela and Puerto Rico.

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