Spina Bifida
More than 1,500 infants born each year in the United States suffer from an often severe and debilitating congenital deformity known as spina bifida. This birth defect is one of three types of neural tube defects that affect the brain, spinal cord, and surrounding protective surfaces (March of Dimes); According to the Spina Bifida Association of America, spina bifida “is the most frequently occurring permanently disabling birth defect. ... There are three forms of spina bifida that affect embryos and newborns. The first, and least severe form, is spina bifida occulta. ... Because no real symptoms are evident, the National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities claims that statistically up to four in ten people could have this form of spina bifida and live a normal life, never knowing they had a congenital deformity. The other two forms of spina bifida, meningocele and myelomeningocele, are sometimes called “spina bifida manifesta” (NICHCY) because physical symptoms are exhibited. The second, more serious form, spina bifida meningocele, is a condition in which “the meninges, or protective covering around the spinal cord, has pushed out through the opening in the vertebrae in a sac called a ‘meningocele’ “ (NICHCY). ... Although this form of spina bifida accounts for only 4% of the manifesta forms (NICHCY), it can be extremely devastating without surgical treatment immediately after birth (March of Dimes). The third and most life-threatening type is spina bifida myelomeningocele. ... ” (NICHCY) The causes of spina bifida are still somewhat ambiguous to scientists because there is no set pattern of inheritance to prove that it is a genetic defect.