Question
My wife has given birth to a child with spina bifida deformity. Doctor, how is this possible?
Answer
Spina bifida is a congenital anomaly of the spine, also known as spinal bifida, primarily caused by developmental disorders of the neural tube during embryogenesis. It is now widely believed to be related to a lack of folic acid during the early stages of pregnancy. The basic pathological change in spina bifida involves varying degrees of absence of the spinous processes and vertebral plates, leading to incomplete closure of the spinal canal and direct adjacency or protrusion of the contents of the spinal canal into extraspinal tissue.