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)

Sometimes they are born with an intact cranium...It's just the brain underneath is missing. In my anatomy textbook there was a bit about how this needed to be diagnosed quickly, otherwise the parents could take the baby home without ever knowing there was a problem, as automatic reaction still existed, but it would die within a few days to weeks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.130.37.12 (talk) 01:23, 25 May 2008 (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)

Yes and I've got Godzilla hidden in my kitchen which in Argentine v UK population and infant mortality rates means there are between 460 and 3700 more in the country. No wonder they're really pushing that Cilit Bang crud on the telly these days. DR - wiki is not a place for pseudo=medical opinions of the pushing-credibility-way-too-far type. And I'm being polite. Ta Plutonium27 22:46, 12 June 2007 (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?

Image

Can we please get the image off of here?? Its really very disturbing, and there are external links. Schprunkel 16:28, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, indeed. Very startling to see it. Chumbakabakabakabakabaka 17:48, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia's job is to inform, and not to censor. The image will remain —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 144.82.106.57 (talk • contribs) 11:01 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, wikipedia's job is to inform, but that doesn't mean that a warning cannot be issued. The images are startling to visitors that aren't expecting them, especially for people experiencing the subject directly. --Stratman 13:28, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, Schprunkel and Chumbakabakabakabakabaka, please familiarize yourself with WP:NOT#CENSORED and Wikipedia:Content disclaimer. This subject is shocking by the very unfamiliar nature of it and it's hard to imagine how to represent it fairly without some kind image. There is also a general lack of material about this in the web, so finding a more palatable yet representative replacement could be hard. --jibun_{≈παντα ρει≈} (keskustele!) 14:16, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

The image is rough to see, having gone through this myself an not really understaning what was going on at the time, the image has helped explain alot to myself an my daughter, that at the time only knew mommy was hiding a baby. Thanks for having the information here. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 164.58.109.3 (talk • contribs) 21:48, 20 April 2007 (UTC+2)

I agree the image is disturbing. It is disturbing enough that it should only be viewable by a link containing a warning. No need to censor it, but no need to force people to see that either when they may just come here for some information and may not necessarily want to view graphic images. The second picture isn't so bad and I don't see why that can't be the main photo. 216.239.67.161 (talk) 16:38, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

While I agree with the NOT CENSORED principal, I find myself unable to read the article due to the image. Sure, leave the image, but why not put it in the article somewhere near the bottom? There's censorship and there's intrusive material which can actually stop someone from reading the article...the image is important, but it's not the first thing I want to look at when I load this page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.150.129.34 (talk) 08:48, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

It's disturbing, yes, and it certainly startled me when I linked here. But I think it should stay, until a less graphic animated depiction can be produced. At that point, it could be moved to the bottom.Fuzzform (talk) 07:12, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

To me, it seems that it would be a great shame if we at Wikipedia were to scare away well-intended people who want to become educated about anencephaly, simply because we blindly adhere to the principle of "non-censorship. I agree that the image is quite disturbing, and I, personally, was unprepared to see it.70.45.193.231 (talk) 01:03, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

All images should remain Wikipedia is not a children's book and may seem offensive to someone. Starting removing anacefals, we would go on with removing images of penis, sex, warfare, decease and anything other that may be considered offensive or disturbing by someone.--Dojarca (talk) 16:19, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

I was really disturbed by the pictures, and it made me close the page immediately. However, since I still wanted to know about the topic, I would be forced to keep looking at them (in the end I just copied the page and pasted the text in a plain-text editor). I understand that we can't remove pictures that anyone finds disturbing, but using a bit of common sense (and reading the comments on this page) we should conclude that a large part of the readers are shocked to see the images unprepared. I think it's therefor better to make a link to the images, or just use a (very) small thumbnail which possibly makes it less shocking. Besides; obviously it might be startling to see a picture of human genitals on there signified pages, but at least you can expect to see something like that. The point is that "Anecephaly" doesn't mean much to the average Joe like me, and I wouldn't expect to see something horrible as on this page. If the page was named something like "Babies without a brain" or "Babies missing part of their head", you know you might see something shocking images. Just my thoughts. 87.212.170.64 (talk) 11:31, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

These images are extremely disturbing. While I understand that it is not Wikipedia's job to censor, can we replace the image with a medical drawing from a textbook? It would be informative without being so horrifically graphic. More graphic photographs can be shown after a jump or warning, but they shouldn't be at the top of the page. 4.153.249.208 (talk) 05:08, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I also agree that the images should be linked to rather than displayed within the page. Other pages that detail disturbing congenital defects consider people who are interested in reading up on the subject but do not want to see images of it, especially two images of it... Yes, it would be censoring, but it is hardly comparable to having a picture of a penis, considering this is not normal development. 193.132.145.151 (talk) 12:46, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

If someone looks up the uncommon medical term Anencephaly, then they already know what kind of medical pictures go with it. I cannot believe anyone would want to remove a relevant picture because its icky. If you can't handle reality, may I suggest Disney.com - MrGuy

Well, MrGuy, that's a fine point until you consider people who just click on a link because they don't know what a word means. That's what brought me here. And i dont see why medical drawings or a "warning, graphic image" cant be used.-DJLO (talk) 08:23, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Agreed; if you don't want to see images of medical conditions, then don't look up medical conditions. It's a horrible world out there, an encyclopaedia needs to reflect that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thelzdking (talk • contribs) 12:00, 4 May 2009 (UTC) I agree. I sure wish I could read the rest of the article without being seriously disturbed. I was scrolling down, reading along, scroll a bit further, "HOLY HELL!" I said. Not fun. Some warning would be nice. There is messages for everything else.. "This article needs cleanup! This article is messy! This, this, this, this, this, this and this needs a citation! This article contains Korean characters! This article is under construction!"... You'd think somebody would have had the presence of mind to include a small warning at the top of the article stating that the article contains extremely graphic and disturbing images. Save-Me-Oprah^(talk) 04:54, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Nepalese Baby

What's the deal with the Nepalese Baby? I saw it on the Urban Legends Reference Page and they have it classified as 'undetermined'. Is this a case of anencephaly? I Love Cookies 17:35, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

The conclusion seems to be that baby is indeed a case of anencephaly. [1] However, the status remains "unverified" since the news artocle that mentioned the case cannot be independently verified. Jumping cheese 11:01, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

YouTube video

Is this it? Maybe add it to the external links? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2N_ivaTe588&NR=1

At what point can this be diagnosed?

When in a pregnancy can a woman learn that this condition exists in the child? Is this a significant source of late term abortions? //// Pacific PanDeist * 03:33, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

The face?

Concerning the leathery, darkly-colored face in the pictures: Is that a by-product of anencephaly or is that just what a fetus's face would normally look like at the point where a disorder like this would be diagnosed?

That seems to be a product of the imaging technique used to photograph the fetus. 68.197.72.206 (talk) 16:05, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Warning?

The images on this page seem to be there for a good reason. But, since they are there, do we really need a warning on the external links section? Somebody having read the article would have seen the images and thus would already know what to expect in the external links. Thomasiscool 00:27, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

[gdfpgo f=pfdhgoi 09r8 0q34lrgj pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.234.2.56 (talk) 03:20, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

The external ones are certainly more varied and, arguably, more graphic. 24.205.50.170 (talk) 19:48, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm usually not bothered by things like this, but I must say, I was somewhat startled when the main picture on this article suddenly popped up upon the page being loaded. I wasn't expecting it at all. Compared to just about any other article on WP, this one has a couple of truly graphic images. I'm sure most readers would find the pictures quite disturbing. I hardly think that a warning for the external link is necessary. How about a warning for the internal links?

Same as other article on web?

The introduction matches word for word, pretty much, with the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke website - http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/anencephaly/anencephaly.htm. There doesn't seem to be acknowledgement of this source, though their site does come up in the references, but referring to a figure used later in another part of the article.

I'm guessing that maybe it is okay to lift articles directly from authoritative sources with permission, instead of re-writing them needlessly but I wasn't sure. Is this a normal/allowable practice? - and you will know know me by the trail of dead. (talk) 23:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I got Editor assistance here and so I'm going to edit the introduction and all pieces of information that are fully taken from the NINDS site, either by rewriting, or quotation with reference. - and you will know know me by the trail of dead. (talk) 05:59, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

On closer inspection, it has been changed somewhat by other editors, but I will go through referencing NINDS more, as this is where the information comes from, and this is where readers should be directed to verify the information. - and you will know know me by the trail of dead. (talk) 06:02, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

References needed

I've done a little bit of work on this article in regards to referencing sources and depicting the facts from those sources accurately (people more experienced with medical science articles are encouraged to look over and see if I did an acceptable job).

However, I feel that some statements, including the entire section on Prognosis, is uncited. I'll try to return to do some more, but I encourage anyone else looking at this, especially someone with access to medical journals, to go through, verify the statements and cite them, please. - and you will know know me by the trail of dead. (talk) 07:07, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. This sentence bothered me the most; "It depends on the case and individual but often the prognosis is not as grim as it was once reported. There is a support group with much current information under the diagnosis "hydroanencepaly" that is useful in dispelling some of the common myths associated and showing the faces of some of the children affected as they age." I couldn't track down who added it originally, but aside from the hopeless tone and syntax, the only google hits I found with "hydroanencepaly" were this exact quote, littered across the web. I'm all for axing it. Shn525 (talk) 17:30, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Consciousness

I have temporarily removed the following statement pending discussion:

However, the assertion that anencephaly rules out the possibility of consciousness ever being achieved has been specifically disputed.

This is given a single source:

Merker B, Consciousness without a cerebral cortex: a challenge for neuroscience and medicine. The Behavioral and brain sciences vol 30 issue 1, pp63–81; discussion pp81–134, 2007 pmid 17475053, doi=10.1017/S0140525X07000891

I personally think that one needs rather more than a single paper to overturn the consensus of neuroscientists. If there is more evidence of a dispute within the profession on this matter, let's discuss it within the article, but as it stands I think the sentence gives undue prominence to a single dissenting paper. --82.18.14.143 (talk) 19:05, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I think some prejudiced idiot from higher up on the talk page did that. Called retarded children a "rightful crime against nature" 72.136.137.24 (talk) 06:31, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

A baby born with anencephaly is usually blind, deaf, unconscious, and unable to feel pain.

This is wrong as consciousness is a state other than sleep or coma. Since state of sleep determined by thalamus, not cortex, these people can experience periods of sleep interlaced with periods of consciousness. Idioty does not mean lack of consciousness, you know.--Dojarca (talk) 14:45, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Treatment & Parental Information

Am I the only one who thinks this section, in particular the parental information in Q&A form, does not fit in an encyclopedia? Bounce_G ^{talk · contributions} 18:41, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree, but I do not trust myself enough to go through and write an article that will conform to the standards. I do not know enough about the subject.Sheepeh (talk) 03:21, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I really find it too awkward. It sounds like tips from a Magazine, or some doctor or nurse speaking. It's too coloquial. It shouldn't directly speak to the reader. Sounds like counseling. Should I revert it to the original article?--Chirigami (talk) 01:50, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Ouch. The idea of this happening to my child, makes me not want anymore chidren. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.162.140.54 (talk) 21:58, 27 April 2009 (UTC)