by nate on Friday, December 18th, 2009 | Diary, Health, Inspiration, Life

Have you heard about the boy born without brain a while ago? I mean, literally, this baby was born with anencephaly, a genetic disease in which a person has no brain, just a brain stem.

His name is Nicholas Coke, and he is a miracle child because normally babies who experience anencephaly, usually die within hours, days at most. This little boy living in Pueblo, Colorado. This means baby Nicholas cannot see, hear, suck, crawl, or sit up. But he has survived without doctors or tubes to celebrate his first birthday.

Anencephaly is a defect in the closure of the neural tube during development in the womb. The neural tube is a narrow channel that folds and closes between the third and fourth weeks of pregnancy, forming the brain and the spinal cord. In rare cases, one end of the neural tube does not close. This results in the absence of a major part of the brain, skull, and scalp.

“He’s smiling. He’s laughed for the first time. It was wonderful to hear him laugh,”

Sheena (his mother) said.

Infants who are born with anencephaly have no forebrain, which is the front and largest part of the brain. The forebrain controls cognitive, sensory, and motor functions, regulates temperature, reproductive functions, eating, sleeping, and display of emotions. They also lack the cerebrum, the part of the brain responsible for thinking and coordinating. The remaining brain tissue is often not covered by bone or skin. A baby born with anencephaly is usually blind, deaf, unconscious, and unable to feel pain.

SOURCES:
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
Newsfirst5.com, Dec. 16 and 18, 2009

Tags: anencephaly, baby miracle, baby without brain, baby without brain turns 1, born with no brain, brainless baby, cannot see, genetic disease, miraculous baby, Nicholas Coke, painless baby, rare disease, Weird