CDC (USA) reports rise in gastroschisis birth defect

scoop80 News from Disability Scoop: Physicians are seeing more instances of a birth defect in which infants are born with their intestines extruding from the stomach wall, with a particularly sharp rise among babies born to young African-American mothers, according to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Over the 18 years leading up to 2012, the CDC has documented a 263 percent increase in the birth defect, called gastroschisis, among children born to black mothers under the age of 20, said a report released this month by the agency.

Coleen Boyle, director of the CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, said it was urgent that researchers find the cause of the defect and determine which women are at greater risk for having babies with the affliction.

In gastroschisis, the intestines, and sometimes other visceral organs such as the liver and stomach, protrude through a hole next to a newborn’s bellybutton. Nearly 2,000 babies are born with the condition each year in the U.S.