Pros And Cons Of Anencephalic Neonates

Ethical Debates involving Anencephalic Neonates: Ethical debates involving anencephalic neonates include the boundaries of organ procurement and the technical term used to describe the death of the neonates. Hospitals follow the cardiorespiratory criteria or in layman terms ‘the dead donor rule’ for standard organ procurement rules. This rule states that the patient has to be pronounced brain dead before his or her organs can be taken from them. Brain death involves failure of heart, failure of lungs, whole brain death, and neocortical death. As described in the previous paragraph, anencephalic neonates do not have brains and therefore can not be pronounced brain dead. In the last decade, some doctors have argued that anencephalic neonates …show more content…
Spina bifida occulta is the least severe neural tube defect and is sometimes known as hidden spina bifida. Spina bifida occulta is generally defined as “a malformation of one or more vertebrae, or the bones of the spine” (“Spina Bifida Occulta,” n.d.). The gap in the spine is small and as a result, the nerve cells are generally not damaged. Therefore, a child with spina bifida occulta does not usually have life-threatening symptoms. Symptoms of spina bifida occulta usually include foot deformities, motor deterioration, and poor bladder control. Another form of spina bifida is meningocele, which results when cerebrospinal fluid and the meninges expand through a gap in the spinal cord. This usually occurs in the lumbar region, also known as the lower spine. Myelomeningocele is the most severe form of spina bifida. In meningomyelocele, sacs that contain fluid hold onto deformed spinal cord tissue. Thus, the spinal cord is exposed through the opening of the spine. Surgery to correct meningomyelocele includes fetal surgery. During fetal surgery, surgeons open the uterine wall, and then carefully open the fetus’s back in order to close the defect. If the infant’s life is not at risk outside of the womb, the surgeon can wait until its birth and then perform a spine surgery or a spinal fusion. Usually, the mother of an infant with spina bifida needs to have a caesarean section to remove the baby without complications (CDC, …show more content…
For example, posterior encephalocele is more often associated with neurological problems, while anterior encephalocele usually does not contain brain tissue. Thus, an infant is more likely to live if it has anterior encephalocele. An infant’s symptoms usually include poor vision, developmental delays, and seizures (“Encephaloceles - NORD (National Organization for Rare Disorders),” n.d.). Surgery to treat encephalocele includes placing the protruding tissue back into the skull or removing the sac. In this way, the surgeon tries to remove all of the protrusion without causing long-term neurological damage. Encephalocele often has a co-morbidity, the presence of two chronic conditions in a patient, with hydrocephalus, which is a disorder that causes excess fluid in the brain (“comorbidity | Definition of comorbidity in US English by Oxford Dictionaries,” n.d.). Unfortunately, families who have already had a child with a neural tube defect are more likely to have a child with encephaloceles, as a result of a high concordance rate. Doctors usually implant a shunt into the infant in this case (“Fetal Neural Tube Defects,” n.d.). To summarize, encephaloceles is another type of neural tube defect that mostly results in cognitive