The women in my story described how she was crushed about all the things the doctors had told her. It’s something that tells them that their child might not make it out alive, or that they might not live to be able to take their first steps. A birth defect is an abnormality in the way a new born’s body looks or functions. There are two different kinds of birth defects, structural and functional. According to Medicine Net “[s]tructural birth defects are related to a problem with body parts such as cleft lip or cleft palate” (sec. 1). As opposed to a functional birth defect that is “related to a problem with how a body part or body system works” (“Medicine Net” sec. 1). In the United States there are about 120,000 babies that are born with birth defects, that’s equivalent to one out of thirty-three babies born (“Birth Defects,” sec. 1). Now you might be asking, what causes birth defects and are there any ways to prevent them? In most cases the cause of a birth defect is unknown. In some cases however, it can be an environmental cause or a genetic cause. There are some birth defects that can be prevented and there are ways to lower the risks of …show more content…
When a sort of miscalculation occurs with the fetus’ chromosomes, then they can end up not having enough chromosomes or have too many of them. Down Syndrome is one of the most common birth defects caused by a child having one extra chromosome. Lastly, according to Kids Health, a genetic birth defect can be caused “when both parents pass along a faulty gene for the same disease; this is called recessive inheritance and includes conditions such as Tay-Sachs disease and cystic fibrosis” (par.