Talk:Anencephaly

"In the United States, approximately 1,000 to 2,000 babies are born with anencephaly each year. Female babies are more likely to be affected by the disorder. About 95% of women who learn that they will have an anencephalic baby choose to have an abortion. Of the remaining 5%, about 55% are stillborn. The rest usually live only a few hours or days."

What is the 1,000 to 2,000 number, exactly? Is it the total number of fetuses with anencephaly, regardless of what the parents choose to do? Or is it just those 5% that aren't terminated? Using the word "born" makes it confusing, since it sounds like most anencephalic fetuses are never born at all. Conspire 15:32, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I came here to ask the same thing... nice stats, where'd ya find 'em? — riana_dzasta • t • c • e • 05:44, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Longest Recorded Lifespan?

Has any(thing?) lived with anencephaly for more than a few days? Months or years? It seems possible, although unlikely, that this could be done.

MSTCrow 20:22, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Longest anencephalic on record is said to be twelve years old. Anencephaly has several different degrees. Cerebellum is also involved in consciousness as well as diencephalon (basal ganglia) and lower brainstem levels. Jakob's lowest degree, namely anencephalics with diencephalon/cerebellum and phylogenetically older formations, with or without rudiments of archipallium, make around two percent of all anencephalics. Since about 80,000 anencephalic people are born every year in the whole world, this makes between 800 to 1600 anencephalics being added to the permanent living population of anencephalic people per year worldwide. The whole size of this worldwide population is only guessed and badly determined. Reason is that anencephalics' statistics come only from neonatology. After anencephalics stabilize and this medical specialty ceases to be incumbent, the long-living anencephalics are taken home, usually poor homes, mostly in poor countries. There, also usually, they are kept out of the neighbors' sight because of shame, since having a highly-retarded child is rightfully a disgrace to nature.

This behavior prevents due record of the long-lived cases, specially in those countries (adding up to most of the world population) where their deaths are recorded as from other causes (usually idiocy-related malformations, cardiac or other failures, etc.) Guesses have been published for some countries; e.g. Argentine (total population, 38 million) has a permanent population of anencephalic citizens of between "several dozens" and 150. It is not discriminated how many of them are long-lived (several months- and years-old) and how many are the less than a month-lived ones, thus replaced at a faster rate in the living anencephalics' permanent population. Both of these last categories (namely, above one month-old, and clinically-stabilized less than one-month old anencephalics) are mesodiencephalic or upper anencephalics and thus have a mind, psyche or existence which besides being objective is also subjective, i.e. an interiority. In many non-Anglo-American countries the word for "consciousness" does mean only a state of mind; this developmentally-achieved particular state might be absent in some of these anencephalics but it doesn't entail that such a mind, psyche or existence doesn't exist in them. These anencephalics thus feel pleasure or pain and relate unexplainedly to their mothers, to whom they are responsive by way of assuaging previous disquiet states. They thus establish a child-mother relationship ("primary dyad", as psychoanalysts say) which is fairly rewarding for the mother and frequently leads her to a philosophical or conceptual maturity. As professionally dealing with and acquainted with the very retarded people, in several cases I have witnessed the mother's sadness at the child's demise, whence in no case of mesencephalic or upper anencephalic could I advice abortion; even for the lower anencephalics I cannot rule out the existence of subjective interiority. Retarded people make a series running from mild retardation to those classically called stupid, imbecille and idiots. Anencephalics are technically considered retarded people, "idiots of the last degree" as Jakob (1909) put it.

I have no time to engage myself in refurbishing this article, which currently is non-neutral and misinformative. The sentence "there is no chance of the infant ever achieving a conscious existence" is clearly false. It was inserted twice, the other time saying "the lack of a functioning cerebrum permanently rules out the possibility of ever gaining consciousness". Both statements are utterly incorrect and the use of "consciousness" instead of "mind", "psyche" or even "soul" misleads additionally the reader. The sentence "About 95% of women who learn that they will have an anencephalic baby choose to have an abortion. Of the remaining 5%, about 55% are stillborn. The rest usually live only a few hours or days" is clearly incorrect and looks to me as abortion-clinics propaganda. This should be mentioned, IMO. Reason is, anencephaly is currently a heavily-wielded topic in political controversies related to why to respect persons more than goods of exchange (e.g., money) or social collectives. Against such "tactical" confluence of the interests that might be labeled as "wild-capitalst" and socialist efforts, unfortunately the defense of anencephalics is too often taken up only by religious groups; in such conditions, I think that the exposition has scarce possibilities of being neutral. A way out is, mentioning the long-lived anencephalics. Yet I personally have very scarce possibilities now of downwriting the entry myself, specially since most sources come from abroad and are in many foreign languages. As I found it, MSTCrow query was important, so I at least tried to contribute a bit toward a more neutral account. DR

If what above is "abortion clinic propaganda", then what you're saying is pro-life propaganda. Without a cerebrum, there can be no consciousness. It's like claiming to be able to see without eyes. And mind and psyche are synonymes, by the way, and is used as a catch-all term for the subconcius, individuallity, etc, all which is also controlled by the cerebrum. As callous as it might sound, a human being without a functioning cerebrum is just a construct of living tissue. (edit: forgot to log in >_< ) Atzel 10:28, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm in no way what you say about me. And what you say about anencephalics is out of this section's topic. Yet I'll try to clarify.

'Anencephalic' is a misname: anencephalics possess cerebrum, or rather all of them possess encephalon and some of them possess cerebrum. To be precise, all of them possess oblongata, some of them pons and mesencephalon, most possess part of or the whole diencephalon, some possess parts of archicortex, paleocortex and even shreds of neocortex - far more than an alligator, for comparison. Such organic structures might developmentally provide sensory contents ("mind") to an experiencer ("psyche"). Let me respectfully suggest that if, as you claim, all of it is "controlled by the cerebrum", then kindly go and tell your opinion to the researchers discussing the presence or either absence of mind in the great squid - you would solve their conundrum, as the squid's "cerebrum" is a completely different structure. So you are saying that their argument is useless, as you claim that clearly there is no mind where no vertebrate-like upper neurostructure is present. Yet, against your opinion, they remain arguing because they refuse to tie body-mind interactions to the architectures developed in the chordate phylum.

It is simply scholarly neither tying the body-mind interactions to the neural arrangements observed in primate neocortex (all the previous, supporting neural levels may also contribute sensory differentiations), nor vision to human or vertebrate eyes. You hammered just on the nail. A parallel situation was caused, time ago, by misnaming "eye" a pigmented spot with or without refractive guidance, in simple organisms that do "see without eyes" (or without what one would call "eye" on adult vertebrates). I think you have no experience with deep idiots'care: if so please try to observe some, hopefully a long-lived anencephalic too. Anencephalics are idiots in the lowest intellectual degree. Please go & see, don't be theoretical on this. We are on the same side in trying to escape propagandas and provide a neutral account. BTW, Atzel, what on Earth does "living tissue" mean? DR

The opposite of dead tissue, maybe?Atzel 12:26, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

In other languages...

There's a corresponding page on fr.wikipedia (anencéphalie), but it doesn't link here, and this page doesn't link there. I don't know how to fix this.85.28.82.47 03:38, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Don't make stats US-specific

How does the annual incidence in the US translate into per 1000 pregnancies?