Study of anomalous babies of neural tubal defects and their mothers

Abstract

Introduction: Neural tube defects occur due to failure of closure of neural tube at its cephalic end .If failure takes place at cranial region, then anencephaly occurs. If failure of closure occurs from cervical region onwards caudally then spina bifida occurs. It usually involves the lumbo-sacral region. Commonly anencephaly, spinabifida, myelocele myelomeningocele occurs as neural tube defects. Environmental and genetic factors give rise to Neural tube defects.

Methods: Patients presenting to the Pediatrics department as well as from the Labor ward and antenatal ward of Obstetrics and Gynecology department in the ‘Teaching Hospital’ of ‘Sree Raja Rajeswari Medical College’, Bangalore were included in the study. It was conducted from 2007 to 2008 for a period of fifteen months. They were studied in detail with proper family history, personal history, drug history, Obstetrics history and were later examined in detail.

Results: Sixteen patients were observed out of these 5 were live births. Of them, two were males and three females. Five were still births and seven cases were born to consanguious parents. Eleven cases were first child to their parents. Mothers of three anomalous babies were diabetic, two were epileptic and the rest were normal.