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If triploidy is diagnosed during the pregnancy, termination is often offered as an option due to the additional health risks for the mother (pre-eclampsia, a life-threatening condition, or choriocarcinoma, a type of cancer). Should a mother decide to carry until term or until a spontaneous miscarriage occurs, doctors will monitor her closely in ...
DES gained notoriety when it was shown to cause a rare vaginal tumor in girls and young women who had been exposed to this drug in utero.In 1971, the New England Journal of Medicine published a report showing that seven of eight girls and young women (ages 14 to 22) who had been diagnosed with vaginal clear cell adenocarcinoma had been exposed prenatally to DES. [5]
However, depending on the type of toxicant and amount of exposure, a fetus can be exposed to toxicants at any time during pregnancy, but have different effects. For example, exposure to a particular toxicant at one time in the pregnancy may result in organ damage and at another time in the pregnancy could cause death of the fetus and miscarriage.
Risk factors include folate deficiency, drinking alcohol or smoking during pregnancy, poorly controlled diabetes, and a mother over the age of 35 years old. [5] [6] Many birth defects are believed to involve multiple factors. [6] Birth defects may be visible at birth or diagnosed by screening tests. [10]
Thalidomide is a known human teratogen and carries an extremely high risk of severe, life-threatening birth defects if administered or taken during pregnancy. [6] It causes skeletal deformities such as amelia (absence of legs and/or arms), absence of bones, and phocomelia (malformation of the limbs).
Environmental toxicants and fetal development is the impact of different toxic substances from the environment on the development of the fetus.This article deals with potential adverse effects of environmental toxicants on the prenatal development of both the embryo or fetus, as well as pregnancy complications.
Fetal hydantoin syndrome, also called fetal dilantin syndrome, is a group of defects caused to the developing fetus by exposure to teratogenic effects of phenytoin. Dilantin is the brand name of the drug phenytoin sodium in the United States, commonly used in the treatment of epilepsy .
Fetal warfarin syndrome is a disorder of the embryo which occurs in a child whose mother took the medication warfarin (brand name: Coumadin) during pregnancy.Resulting abnormalities include low birth weight, slower growth, intellectual disability, deafness, small head size, and malformed bones, cartilage, and joints.