8 Babies - Spina Bifida PSA

Nicole Ari Parker for Sophie's Voice Foundation: 8 Babies - Spina Bifida PSA

Category:

Education

Tags:

• health
• educational
• family
• parents
• childrens
• charity

[MrWeatherman10]

Co-authors at the UT Medical School, along with Northrup, include: Terri M. King, Ph.D.; Kit Sing Au, Ph.D.; Irene Townsend, R.N. Others are: Jack M. Fletcher, Ph.D., University of Houston; and Gayle H. Tyerman, M.D., Shriners Hospital for Children, Los Angeles.

The study was funded with grants from the National Institutes of Health and Shriners Hospital for Children.

[MrWeatherman10]

The lead author of the study is Christina Davidson, M.D., who was a fellow in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at the UT Medical School. She currently is at Baylor College of Medicine.

[MrWeatherman10]

Another way women can reduce their risk of having a baby with spina bifida: take 400 micrograms of folic acid daily. The number of cases could be reduced by as much as 70 percent

[MrWeatherman10]

“In the United States, Mexican-American women have the highest rates of neural tube defects and they are also at increased risk for obesity and adult-onset diabetes, so this study may be especially relevant to pregnant women in Texas.”

[MrWeatherman10]

Spina bifida is the most common permanently disabling birth defect in the United States, according to the Spina Bifida Association. It happens when the spine of the baby fails to close during the first months of pregnancy. It occurs in seven out of 10,000 births in the United States. According to the Spina Bifida Association of Texas, a Hispanic woman is twice as likely to have a child with this crippling birth defect. In Texas, nearly two out of every 1,000 babies born have spina bifida.

[MrWeatherman10]

“We are trying to find out what causes this neural tube defect. It has been recognized through epidemiological studies for a number of years that there was a connection between high glucose levels, either due to maternal diabetes or obesity and having a child with spina bifida,” said co-author Hope Northrup, M.D., professor and director of medical genetics in the Department of Pediatrics at the UT Medical School. “

[MrWeatherman10]

UT Medical School researchers tested variants in a dozen genes that take part in glucose metabolism to look for a link between genetic variation in affected children and spina bifida. Each affected child’s parents were also studied, as well as DNA from unaffected control samples. The samples were gathered from study participants in Houston, Los Angeles and Toronto.

[MrWeatherman10]

Genetic Link To Spina Bifida Discovered

ScienceDaily (Dec. 18, 2007) — Researchers at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston have discovered an association between genes regulating glucose metabolism and spina bifida. The decade-long study looked at more than 1,500 DNA samples from parents and their children with that birth defect.

[MrWeatherman10]

We now know that women who take folic acid supplements or multivitamins containing at least 400 mcg of folic acid daily, while planning pregnancy and continuing through the first six weeks, avoid some "70" percent of cases with spina bifida so wat about the other percentage I say it is gentics related

[MrWeatherman10]

Surgery on fetus reduces complications of spina bifida