The statistics is inexorable: every year the number of children born with pathologies of a very different scale is only growing. At the same time, infant mortality rates are declining. This trend cannot be very encouraging, because a sick child is a colossal burden on parents and the state. A huge amount of effort, labor and financial resources is invested in it. And if the disease is serious, then, despite all efforts, he may not become a full member of society. Sociologists, doctors, and all concerned people are interested in the question: why is a child born sick, especially if there were no prerequisites for this? Let's try to understand this issue with you.
The opinion of children's doctors
Well, someone who, and they should be aware of the latest developments. Children's surgeons themselves complain that babies with pathologies that they have not seen before are being born. Multiple malformations of the intestines and lungs, heart and stomach, esophagus and central nervous system, underdeveloped internal organs ... They are operated on, but there is no guarantee that development will continue normally. Why is a baby born sick? Doctors are sure that the last thing is their parents. Now gives birth to a generation that grew in the 90s. Lack of everything needed to shape their body. And today, instead of serious preparation for pregnancy, testing and treatment, many people prefer to attend clubs. We see the result every day.
Bad heredity
You can talk for a long time about the crisis of the modern generation, but you should not blame everything on the frivolity of youth. At the time of our grandmothers there was a healthy diet, a sufficient amount of physical exertion, a normal environmental situation, but children often died in large numbers. The reasons were different: childhood diseases, poor sanitary conditions, lack of preventive vaccinations. But the fact remains: people did not know why the child is born sick, but if that happened, they more calmly perceived the fact of his death. He will not suffer himself and will not give offspring, even weaker. This is called natural selection. No wonder the families often had ten children, and only three or four survived.
Modern advances in medicine
How are things today? The question why a child is born sick is very multifaceted. There are many different factors, related questions and few answers. They are studied by genetics, physiologists, doctors, but they definitely can’t answer. Today, medicine has taken a serious step forward. Doctors help pregnant women to couples who could never have offspring. Those born at the earliest stages are rescued and “carried” in special incubators. This is all good, but what about the consequences? Is it because these men and women did not have children because their genes should not have been passed on to the next generation? Was nature wrong when she tried to stop the development of the baby whom the doctors saved? It is difficult to unequivocally answer these questions.
Severe consequences
Speaking about why sick children are born, they often recall the dangers of alcoholism and smoking. It is no secret that today young girls and boys began to get involved in such things more often than in sports. It would seem that we took a walk in youth, and then grew up, settled down, and forgot like a bad dream ... And all would be fine, but only the harmful substances taken directly during pregnancy affect the development of the child. The girl’s eggs are formed once and for a lifetime, gradually ripening in the order of turn. Therefore, you need to remember your role as a future mother in advance.
In men, everything is a little easier. Sperm cells are completely updated time after time, so if you plan to become a father, it’s enough to eat right the last month or two, give up alcohol and smoking. This does not guarantee that you will have a healthy baby, but it reduces the chances of having babies with pathologies.
Here I would like to say about modern ecology. You ask why non-smokers give birth to sick children. And who canceled the passive inhalation of cigarette smoke at stops and in public places? But not only smokers create problems. Cars, factories - there are so many emissions of toxic substances in the air that one can wonder how healthy children are born in our country. And what kind of woman has a way out? More often to be in nature, spend time in parks.
Proper nutrition
Continuing to consider why sick children are born to healthy parents, I want to note that the nutrition of future parents plays an important role. We now do not mean the period of pregnancy itself, when the mother eaten has a direct effect on the baby.
What do children and adolescents love? Chips and crackers, cola and hamburgers. And porridge and kefir are disgusting for them. If the young body regularly lacks the substances it needs and is simultaneously saturated with transgenic fats, but it will not bring anything good in the future. As they grow older, they can start with a great understanding of their health and rethink their eating habits. But at this point, the development of the body is fully completed and it is not possible to correct any errors. They may not be critical, but, folding together, in the next generation will lead to more serious deviations. So, time after time, we get an increasingly less viable generation.
Genetic diseases
All of the above seems logical, but does not answer the question of why sick children are born to healthy parents. Even if we assume that the mother and father grew up in ideal conditions, carefully planned a future pregnancy and followed all the recommendations of the doctors, it is not possible to exclude the possibility of pathologies in the fetus.
Mutations are the cause of hereditary diseases. Today, genetics have already concluded that each person is a carrier of 2-4 recessive mutations that are responsible for severe hereditary diseases. Their diversity is very large. Imagine a kaleidoscope with a huge number of particles that do not add up to the overall picture. These are people who are carriers of different genes. But if spouses have violations of one gene, then the chance of developing intrauterine defects in a child increases significantly. That is why closely related marriages are prohibited, because they greatly increase the chances of having a baby with pathologies.
Genetically modified foods
This is another big topic around which disputes continue. Some people, when asked why many sick children are born, will answer: and you will remember how many products with GMOs are sold in stores today. Moreover, even among scientists, there is an ongoing debate about whether genetically modified vegetables can affect the gene pool of mankind. There were attempts to trace the development of several generations of mice fed with genetically modified grain, but the results were different each time. Yes, and our organisms are very different.
Today you can find two opinions that are fundamentally different from each other. First: GMO products are evil that, after several generations, will lead to the complete extinction of humanity. Second: there is nothing dangerous in them; these are ordinary food products. In fact, the second statement has more evidence than the first. Genetics say that every day a large number of plant and animal genes enter our body, because every cell carries DNA. But no matter how many genes you eat, our own DNA does not change. The body does not use the nucleotide (DNA link) received with food in direct form. Instead, he takes it as a material, on the basis of which he synthesizes his nucleotides already. Of course, there are substances that we call mutagens. They just differ in that they are capable of causing DNA damage. But GMO products are not among those.
Genetic examinations
There is another question that causes some confusion. Clearly, it is difficult to answer why sick mothers are born in healthy mothers. There are joined a huge number of factors that can affect the formation of a tiny organism. But why doctors can not say in advance that the baby will be inferior? It would seem that now there is every opportunity for this. Regularly, a woman undergoes an ultrasound scan, donates blood for hormones and genetic tests, and consults with dozens of specialists.
In fact, none of the modern methods for diagnosing intrauterine development provides a 100% guarantee that the conclusion will be correct. Moreover, errors happen both in one direction and in the other direction. An example is an analysis of the probability of having a Down baby. Some mothers decide, contrary to forecasts, to leave the baby, having a high risk of having a sick child, and give birth to a healthy baby, while others - vice versa. Of course, early detection of developmental pathology could seriously facilitate the task of doctors and mother’s fate, but so far, doctors can detect only a fraction of probable diseases and malformations.
Is IVF a solution to all problems?
If the normal course of pregnancy cannot be diagnosed at such a deep level, then perhaps IVF is the best alternative. They paid, underwent a genetic examination, the doctors fertilized the egg, put them in the uterus and took a sample of amniotic fluid for analysis. As a result, you already in the first days of pregnancy know whether a boy or girl will be born to you, and whether they have genetic abnormalities. On the one hand, this is a way out. But again, we are faced with the fact that modern equipment does not allow us to determine all possible pathologies with 100% certainty. Again, ahead of 9 months of pregnancy, during which the development of the fetus can change its vector under the influence of various external factors. We still could not find a definite answer why many sick children are being born now, but there are too many variables in this task to be able to answer in a nutshell.
Instead of a conclusion
Of course, everything we talked about today can play a role in the development of the child. This is the health of parents, the presence or absence of bad habits, chronic diseases and untreated infections on time. But that is not all. All these factors give a chance to embryo an embryo without any pathologies. But he still needs to grow up. And for this, a pregnant woman must eat right, observe a regimen of work and rest, not exert herself physically and psychologically, take the necessary vitamins and minerals and take care of herself.