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Environmental Disease
Published in Gary S. Moore, Kathleen A. Bell, Living with the Earth, 2018
Gary S. Moore, Kathleen A. Bell
Just as chemicals ingested by a mother-to-be during critical window of an embryo’s development can cause physical abnormalities, so too can the absence of certain important nutritional compounds. The absence of folic acid, a B vitamin, from a pregnant woman’s diet is associated with neural tube defects including spina bifida and anencephaly. Spina bifida is characterized by the protrusion of a portion of the spinal cord from the spinal column, while anencephaly is a disorder in which most of the brain is absent. Consequently, the simple addition of this vitamin to the diet of a woman about to conceive can prevent a seriously debilitating and often fatal disease.
Thermal Comfort and Gender, Age, Geographical Location and for People with Disabilities
Published in Ken Parsons, Human Thermal Comfort, 2019
Spina bifida is when a baby’s spine and spinal cord don’t develop properly in the womb, causing a gap in the spine. Spina bifida is a type of neural tube defect, which is the structure that eventually develops into the baby’s brain and spinal cord. In severe cases the baby’s spinal canal remains open along several vertebrae forming a sac in the back. In less severe cases the gaps are small and don’t cause problems.
Glossary of scientific and technical terms in bioengineering and biological engineering
Published in Megh R. Goyal, Scientific and Technical Terms in Bioengineering and Biological Engineering, 2018
Spina bifida is a congenital condition that results from altered fetal development of the spinal cord, part of the neural plate fails to join together and bone and muscle are unable to grow over this open section.
Prenatal politics: fetal surgery, abortion and disability rights in the United States
Published in The New Bioethics, 2021
Non-interventionist arguments (Blizzard 2007, Wright 2017) also overlap with the broader concerns of the disability rights and feminist movements. Specifically, that the money and resources channelled into fetal surgery would be better spent on improving prenatal and postnatal care for American infants and mothers, whose mortality rates are among the highest in the developed world (20.1 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 2019), even ranking above many developing nations, especially when age, race and socioeconomic factors are taken into consideration (Hoyert 2021). Education and free access to healthcare, including inexpensive prenatal supplements such as folic acid, could dramatically reduce conditions such as spina bifida—which is caused by a lack of folic acid during gestational development—and the need for some types of fetal surgery (Casper 2007). As activists have expressed, in the age of high-tech medicine, it is appalling that millions of Americans still cannot access basic health care and medication, including birth control pills, but may qualify for fetal surgery as part of government-funded studies (Casper 1998).
Biomolecules of Similar Charge Polarity Form Hybrid Gel
Published in Soft Materials, 2022
Pankaj Pandey, Vinod Kumar Aswal, Joachim Kohlbrecher, Himadri B. Bohidar
FA is the synthetic form of folate, an important member of vitamin B family. Structurally, FA is in an extended conformation with the pteridine ring (fused pyrimidine and pyrazine rings) in the keto form where the C(4) oxygen and N(10) atoms are located on the same side of the molecule.[7] Very often the FA pteridine and phenyl rings interact in a stacking manner which lead to the of association these groups to form a complex of folate, dihydrofolate reductase, and reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate. FA with the molecular formula of C19H19, has a nominal molecular weight of ≈ 441 Da. The crystal and molecular structure of FA has been determined by x-ray diffraction.[8] Because of the intrinsic hydrophobicity of FA, its water dispersibility is marginal. By the manipulation of hydrophobicity, native FA, which behaves as a super-gelator in DMSO–water binary solvent, can be made to generate a supramolecular gel. FA supramolecular gels made in water-organic solvent binary mixtures have been reported.[9] It has been realized that native FA can serve as an efficient molecular building block, and as a super-gelator to produce multi-responsive soft materials.[10,11] Folate plays an important role for a range of regulatory functions in the human body. It is required for the synthesis and repair of DNA and other genetic material, production and maintenance of new cells including RBCs, and it is also necessary for cell division. Folate deficiency can lead to severe anemia, and during pregnancy, to neural tube irregularities, such as spina bifida and anencephaly. FA derived hydrogel enhances the survival and promotes therapeutic efficacy of iPS Cells for acute myocardial infarction.[12] The hierarchical self-assembly of FA supramolecular hydrogels offer robust mechanical elastic modulus comparable to synthetic double-network polymer gels.[13]
Fetal surgery: how recent technological advancements are extending its applications
Published in Expert Review of Medical Devices, 2019
Recently, fetoscopy has also been applied to the in utero repair of spina bifida (SB). Spina bifida, usually myelomeningocele (MMC), is a congenital defect, in which the spine fails to fully close around the spinal cord [13]. As a result, the spinal cord protrudes through the opening of the spinal column and may be enclosed in a fluid-filled sac. MMC is associated with significant life-long disabilities from complications such as hydrocephalus, motor and cognitive defects, bowel and bladder dysfunction, and social and emotional challenges. Open MMC repair involves a combination of general and epidural anesthesia as well as fetal anesthesia. In 2011, a prospective multicenter randomized controlled trial known as the Management of Myelomeningocele Study (MOMS) demonstrated a decreased need for ventriculoperitoneal shunting, reversal of hindbrain herniation, and improved neurologic function in the prenatal repair group compared to the postnatal repair group [14]. Due to its efficacy, fetal MMC closure has become a standard of care option for prenatally diagnosed spina bifida. However, the procedure comes with several tradeoffs including higher rates of obstetrical complications such as oligohydramnios, chorioamniotic membrane separation, placental abruption, premature rupture of membranes, preterm delivery, and uterine scar dehiscence. In order to reduce the rate of these complications associated with open fetal MMC repair, a fetoscopic approach has been developed. Initial studies have demonstrated that fetoscopic MMC repair is associated with similar results compared to the open in utero repair (MOMS trial) with less complications to the mothers (possibility of vaginal deliveries and reduced prematurity) [13]. Because of this technique’s development, some groups are now attempting the two-layer closure with the fetoscopic approach [13]. However, further studies are still necessary to compare long-term outcomes after fetoscopic MMC repair with open MMC repair.