In regards to anencephaly, those who oppose organ donation argue that it could open the door for involuntary organ donors such as an elderly person with severe dementia. Another point of contention is the number of children who would actually benefit. There are discrepancies in statistics; however, it is known that most anencephalic children are stillborn.Proposals have been made to bypass the legal and ethical issues surrounding organ donation. These include waiting for death to occur before procuring organs, expanding the definition of death, creating a special legal category for anencephalic infants, and defining them as non-persons.In the United Kingdom, a child born with anencephaly was reported as the countrys youngest organ donor. Teddy Houlston was diagnosed as anencephalic at 12 weeks of gestation. His parents, Jess Evans and Mike Houlston, decided against abortion and instead proposed organ donation. Teddy was born on 22 April 2014, in Cardiff, Wales, and lived for 100 minutes, after which his heart and kidneys were removed. His kidneys were later transplanted into an adult in Leeds. Teddys twin, Noah, was born healthy. Brain death
There are four different concepts used to determine brain death: failure of heart, failure of lungs, whole brain death, and neocortical death.Neocortical death, similar to a persistent vegetative state (PVS), involves loss of cognitive functioning of the brain. A proposal by law professor David Randolph Smith, in an attempt to prove that neocortical death should legally be treated the same as brain death, involved PET scans to determine the similarities.
This means that the child can move, smile, suckle and breathe without the aid of devices. Causes
Folic acid has been shown to be important in neural tube formation since at least 1991, and as a subtype of neural tube defect, folic acid may play a role in anencephaly. Studies have shown that the addition of folic acid to the diet of women of child-bearing age may significantly reduce, although not eliminate, the incidence of neural tube defects. Therefore, it is recommended that all women of child-bearing age consume 0.4 mg of folic acid daily, especially those attempting to conceive or who may possibly conceive, as this can reduce the risk to 0.03%. It is not advisable to wait until pregnancy has begun, since, by the time a woman knows she is pregnant, the critical time for the formation of a neural tube defect has usually already passed. A physician may prescribe even higher dosages of folic acid (5 mg/day) for women having had a previous pregnancy with a neural tube defect.Neural tube defects can follow patterns of heredity, with direct evidence of autosomal recessive inheritance. As reported by Bruno Reversade and colleagues, the homozygous inactivation of the NUAK2 kinase leads to anencephaly in humans. Animal models indicate a possible association with deficiencies of the transcription factor TEAD2.