Anencephaly is a condition that affects unborn children, often developing during the embryonic stages of development. It’s a condition that causes an unborn child to develop with a major portion of their skull, scalp and brain.
This cephalic disorder often results from a neural tube defect. This particular defect occurs when the rostral or head end of the tube fails to completely close, often occurring between day 23 and 26 of conception. Since many unborn babies with anencephaly have a portion of their entire head undeveloped or missing, most often don’t survive past birth.
Parents often get little information about the exact life expectancy of babies with anencephaly from their doctor. Being a relatively uncommon condition, most doctors don’t have immediate information regarding the life expectancy of the parent’s child.
The Life Expectancy of Anencephaly
Determining the life expectancy of unborn children with anencephaly often starts before birth. Most unborn children don’t survive the pregnancy. There are, however, many cases where a child with anencephaly did survive the pregnancy. Even when born, many children don’t make it past their first year.
Surviving Birth
According to data from a recent study regarding anencephaly life expectancies for babies after birth, most of the aforementioned pregnancies made it to full term. The results from the study provided some interesting information regarding birth survival rates of babies with anencephaly.
Pregnancy
According to the study, which drew data from about 300 babies with anencephaly, over 40 percent of the children were born premature. Only 4 percent of those children made it at or beyond term, with about two-thirds of their mothers having their birth induced and/or conducted via planned c-section.
In 30 percent of the cases, the births experienced a build up of too much amniotic fluid (polyhydramnios). That condition doubled the chances of a premature birth. Most of the babies with the aforementioned condition were born before 37 weeks.
Birth
Most of the babies were able to be delivered via a vaginal delivery without problems. The mothers who chose a vaginal birth, about 42 percent, experienced a spontaneous delivery. Some mothers experienced a planned c-section.
Results
The study essentially found that only a small number of babies affected with anencephaly died before birth, which was about 7 percent in the study. The actual numbers may vary, based on the amount of anencephaly cases out there. From the study, only 5 percent of the babies lived 6 or more days. Despite that, babies born with anencephaly do have a lower than expected life expectancy, due to the nature of the disorder.
