Kolkata gets the first centre which will cater to children suffering from spina bifida – ET HealthWorld
Kolkata: Kolkata on Friday got a nodal centre for the treatment of children suffering from spina bifida, a common congenital neurological disease.
AMRI Hospitals has tied up with the Spina Bifida Foundation, India’s only organization that takes the onus of bringing together physicians and surgeons who treat children suffering from the disease to launch the nodal centre.
Dr Subhasis Saha, senior paediatric surgeon, at AMRI Hospital Mukundapur, who will be heading the centre, said that spina bifida is highly preventable simply by proper inclusion of folic acid in the diet of an expecting mother.
“In spina bifida, the spinal cord of a newborn is not properly developed and its lower part remains incomplete, which leads astray several nerves from the brain to organs in the lower parts of the body, like the urinary bladder and the rectum. This diversion means a child cannot urinate or excrete properly, which ultimately leads to kidney damage and renal failure,” he explained.
Dr Saha further said that this also causes problems like lower limb mobility and other kinds of spasticity, including deformities in muscles and bones. He added that in order to treat a child with such malformations, a multi-disciplinary team is needed to address these issues.
“It needs a neurosurgeon to correct the gap in the spinal cord, implant a shunt in the brain, if necessary, so that a pipe can be inserted there to drain out the excess water getting accumulated in the brain, an urologist or a paediatric surgeon to ensure that the urinary bladder is fixed and the child doesn’t suffer renal failure, along with an orthopaedic surgeon and a physiotherapist to take care of proper limb movement for maximum mobility,” he said.
Dr Saha pointed out that the team should also include a psychologist for counseling of parents, as well as the child, as they grow up. “At AMRI Mukundapur, we have all these specialists, who will come together to address all the issues of any child suffering from spina bifida. While the whole process will be a prolonged struggle, if a child is under care of such a multi-faceted team since birth, all of them can lead a normal life, as they grow older,” he said.
“The disease is completely preventable if a woman has 4 milligrams of folic acid as part of her regular diet from the time she is planning a pregnancy till the time she delivers. However, it has to be ensured that folic acid is taken even before she becomes pregnant because if she starts taking folic acid after she has conceived, it will not have any effect. The daily requirement of folic acid can be mixed with flour or table salt, just like iodine in salt helps in preventing thyroid. Once the Government includes this in its advisory, we can ensure that number of spina bifida cases will drastically go down,” Dr Saha explained.
“We have been campaigning with the Union Health ministry to make it a mandatory part of all mother’s prenatal diet,” he said, adding that unlike in the West, where incidence of spina bifida is one in 100,000, in India 3-4 child in 10,000 is found to suffer from this disease. He also said that as part of the activities of the nodal centre, they will also run awareness campaigns among doctors so that the disease can be prevented even better.
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