World Journal of
Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences

ANENCEPHALY: A CASE REPORT AND REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Ayoub Amghar*, Douha Elkaroini, Soukaina Sabir, Amine Lamrissi, Jalal Mohamed and Said Bouhya

ABSTRACT

Anencephaly is a congenital malformation of the nervous system of the fetus, which occurs due to a defect in the closure of the neural tube. The fetus is left with a part of the brain (brain, cerebellum and brain stem) missing. Anencephali can be diagnosed by ultrasound in the first trimester. Therapeutic termination of pregnancy has been recommended in developed countries since the 1990s and the birth rate of anencephaly is almost zero in these countries. This makes it possible to avoid giving birth to a newborn with a severe handicap, a difficult choice for the parents, but it is important to take into account an important fact: anencephalic newborns survive only a few hours after birth and are often blind, deaf, cannot feel pain and remain unconscious. This observation was made at the Ibn Rochd Hospital in Casablanca, Morocco, at the Lalla Meriem Maternity Hospital in a case of anencephaly whose parents refused to terminate the pregnancy. The interest of this work was to underline the heavy psychological handicap that this pathology has on the parents, hence the interest of genetic counselling and folic acid prophylaxis in women at risk.

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