Do Most Babies Born With Fas Have Normal Intelligence
What does the future hold for babies with microcephaly?
Images from Brazil of babies with undersized heads, a condition called microcephaly, are unsettling, and the surge in cases raises many questions about what the future may hold for these children, whose mothers were infected with the Zika virus while significant.
There'due south a broad spectrum of wellness bug children with microcephaly may face. Some may be in otherwise skillful health, while some volition endure crippling mental and concrete disabilities. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says people with microcephaly may have problems including seizures, intellectual inability, trouble walking or standing, or difficulty speaking or swallowing. Some as well have hearing or vision problems.
The authors of a study out this week in JAMA Ophthalmology identified heart problems in a number of infants with Zika-related microcephaly. The written report looked at 29 newborns and found that 10 of them had defects in the retina or the optic nerve. Seven of the babies had problems in both eyes. "These type of defects cannot be fixed. They may lead to blindness," CBS News medical contributor Dr. Tara Narula told "CBS This Morning."
Babies whose brain development is stunted earlier birth will non grow out of information technology and may require life-long care.
Dr. Nassim Zecavati, an assistant professor of pediatrics and neurology at Georgetown University School of Medicine has treated many children born with microcephaly, though none related to the current Zika outbreak.
Zecavati said that while media reports are using the term "microcephaly" as if it's a condition, information technology would be more accurate to describe information technology equally a catchall term.
"Microcephaly is a very general description of a very small-scale head," she said.
It's a reflection of a lack of brain growth, but it can occur due to a multifariousness of causes, said Zecavati, who is also manager of pediatric neurology educational activity at MedStar Georgetown Academy Hospital.
"The prognosis is entirely dependent on the cause," she said.
Zecavati said she divides cases into three "buckets" when she's educational activity medical residents about the condition. Simply even her buckets have lots of variability.
Well-nigh a 3rd of babies with microcephaly are born with genetic or chromosomal issues, such equally Downward syndrome.
Infants exposed in utero to substance abuse or an infection, or other womb-related problems, fall into the 2nd group. They include those born with fetal alcohol syndrome or whose mothers used methamphetamine or opioids, for case.
A baby's brain development can be impacted if the mother suffers an infection such as toxoplasmosis, cytomegalovirus (also called CMV, a type of herpes virus), High german measles (rubella), chickenpox (varicella), canker, or syphilis during pregnancy. Zika virus also appears to take this outcome, although the link is still under investigation.
"Anything that slows downward brain growth in the womb" is a trouble, Zecavati told CBS News, as is "astringent deprivation of claret flow and oxygen" earlier, during or after delivery. Or sometimes the placenta is deficient and nutrients don't reach the baby and promote normal brain growth.
"The brain is developing at a rapid pace in infants. But it'south even more rapid in utero. The neurons are increasing at an exponential charge per unit, compared even to the first twelvemonth of life," she said.
So at that place's the third group, which Zecavati labels "other."
"Sometimes we can't even identify something, where the cause is unknown, including some microcephaly babies with normal encephalon function. A person may have a minor head considering of family genetics but they have normal intelligence," she said.
Dr. Edward McCabe, senior vice president and primary medical officer of the March of Dimes, told CBS News, "About 10 to 15 percent of all babies in the U.Due south. with microcephaly practice not have abnormal brain development. They are a normal variation. Information technology'southward not a birth defect."
The prognosis for Zika-linked cases of microcephaly appears ominous, but information technology's notwithstanding also early to know the full moving-picture show. Health officials in Brazil study some iv,000 babies have been born with microcephaly in contempo months, and doctors there are still trying to understand the scope of the problem.
Dr. Angela Rocha heads up the attempt to empathise and manage the crisis at the Oswaldo Cruz Infirmary in Recife, Brazil, at the epicenter of the Zika outbreak. She told CBS News primary medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook, she's never seen annihilation like it. "It's a generation of babies with inability, which is a huge social, economic and public wellness problem," she said.
The Zika outbreak withstanding, microcephaly is non mutual. In the U.S., the CDC says estimates of its frequency range from two to 12 babies per ten,000 live births.
Zecavati said microcephaly is diagnosed based on guidelines for normal head growth at certain ages. At birth, the average babe's head circumference is 13.7 inches (35 centimeters), and and then increases near 0.4 inches (ane centimeter) per month during the first yr of life.
In a good for you babe, the most rapid growth occurs in the get-go 6 months after birth. Brain weight doubles by four to six months and triples by a babe's first altogether. Past age two, the brain is nigh 80 percentage of developed size, said Zecavati. If a child doesn't come across those benchmarks, microcephaly is a business organisation.
Developmental delays -- falling short of standard milestones like sucking and swallowing early on, visually fixating on the female parent's confront by 1 month, head command starting to develop in the first iii months, sitting up and cooing past 6 months, for example -- signal how severe a child's disability may exist, Zecavati explained.
"I'm hesitant to give a timeline," she said, considering at that place'southward developmental variation fifty-fifty in healthy babies.
Lots of questions still remain when it comes to Zika-linked microcephaly, but right at present experts believe many babies whose moms were infected with the virus volition face up serious health challenges, maybe including disabling nerve damage.
Zecavati said the phase of pregnancy that the mother was infected could touch how severe the impact is on the child. Exposure to infection in the first trimester of pregnancy -- when the baby's brain, spinal cord, heart and other organs are beginning to form, and when the neural tube forth a baby's back is endmost -- may lead to more than astringent problems.
"If exposure to the Zika virus occurs later in pregnancy when major brain structures accept been formed, the findings may be different," Zecavati said.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI scans) may requite clues to when the virus was introduced and which parts of the baby's brain are most affected, she added.
The March of Dimes' McCabe said the CDC is now recommending that women who are pregnant and who have visited 1 of the countries where Zika virus is spreading should get a medical work-upwardly. "Even if they're trying to become pregnant," he added, seeing a doc is a good idea.
Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/zika-babies-with-microcephaly/
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