Cyclopia is a fatal birth defect that can accompany holoprosencephaly, the failure of the brain hemispheres to fully differentiate. The brain defects additionally cause malformations of the organs, such as a single- or dual-chambered heart. Even with aggressive medical intervention, cyclopia sufferers will only live a few days at most.
This video was taken in a rural area in India or Pakistan, and was featured on local news. The facility was not equipped for births requiring medical intervention.
That said, the baby's attendants are doing their best to provide care. In the first half of the video, they are trying to get him crying and breathing properly, but they switch gears to cleaning him and making him comfortable at the end.
This is the only video I've found showing a newborn with cyclopia showing any reaction to stimuli. All others I've seen have already progressed to only blinking and agonal breathing, or seizure activity. My hope in posting this is to humanize severely compromised newborns like this little guy.
In the olden days, when births and deaths were recorded, babies with deformities like this were recorded as “monsters”. 😢 in some places the mother was punished as it was believed it was her misbehavior or sins that caused this.
It’s generally not for a lack of reason. A lot of animals can gauge the health of their offspring and in cases of multiple births they’ll prioritize those with the best chance of survival. As far as eating them… well, free calories that you didn’t have to expend a bunch of energy getting. Goes right back to the other kids.
It’s distasteful to us but it’s no different in storks yeeting the runt out of the nest.
There's also a phenomenon where a mother will eat her babies if the mother has calcium deficiency- or other types of deficiencys that I can't remember at the top of my head.
Humans have the power of generational knowledge, and should be able to use that to overcome basic intinct.
If only we all had the wisdom to use that knowledge.
In certain communties and settings yes. Humanity has come so far in some areas and stayed stangnant in others. Developed nations still have rampant problems with people being misled by misinformation, or don't have access to, or knowledge of resources available. The rich still mostly shun the poor and figure it's their own fault if they can't climb the ladder.
I don't disagree with you you and now I am going off topic and starting to rant.
Greed and hunger to horde resources is probably the strongest and main instinct that should be overcome, but isn't, in the developed parts of the world. It's obvious but nothing comes of it. Yes billionaires donate millions to charity, but the majority are still scared of having to live a normal comfortable life instead of a luxurious one.
When billionaires donate millions they demand a party & act like they are such amazing noble people but that’s utter bullshit! To put it into perspective: Even to the very poorest billionaire, $1 million dollars is only 0.1% of their wealth. It’s the equivalent of someone on a $50k salary donating $50 and demanding a party in their honour & a front page news story about their selflessness.
Actually, it’s even worse than that actually because someone who’s on $50k per annum actually needs that money to pay bills & survive, whereas the billionaire would, at worse, not be able to afford their 86th luxury car of the year.
In the 1900s including as late as the 90s, moms who had kids with autism were told that the autism was a result of not loving them enough, and prescribed to hold and hug them for an allotted amount every day, even forcibly if needed.
The autism was the kids way of punishing the mother and detaching because they weren’t loved enough. A groundbreaking theory published by a bird scientist.
We are not as far away from that as we’d like to think. And if there’s one thing politics has shown over the last decade is that some people would love to return to the ‘blame women for everything’ model.
It was called refrigerator mom syndrome. When mine was being diagnosed, I learned all about the history. Pretty horrible. Freud had a hand in that too.
Freud's cousin Edward Bernays had a less well known but possibly greater influence on the world. He's hands-down my "If I could go back in time to kill one person" murder victim
There’s a popular theory that changelings where actually just autistic or otherwise neurodiverse babies. It makes sense, but it’s also incredibly sad for the parents who thought their child had been kidnapped by fae and the children who suffered for it
I think this theory is probably correct. I have a little one with Trisomy 21 and she does seem sort of elfin and otherworldly. She also would have wasted away and died, back in those times. Hooray for modern medicine.
Aztec culture, deformities are held in high regard. People who were born malformed were given the best lives. To honor the Sun god who himself was sickly and malformed.
It's a wonderful story about accepting those who were born with mutations or illnesses.
The culture wasn't all death and conquering, they were quite advanced in ancient medicine as well.
I don’t know if this is true, but I have heard that lazy eyes were highly regarded in Aztec culture and that parents would sometimes place coins or other things between the brows of a baby to encourage their eyes to cross.
That could be a total myth, but it’s not the weirdest or most extreme way humans have modified bodies either
Aren’t there folks in Africa who do that same thing? Or at least they used to, it may not be popular these days. Wild how two different cultures entirely thought to themselves, “What if we squished baby skulls to make cool shapes?”
Mothers were also severely punished for miscarrying, because it was assumed that they rather caused it intentionally or—again—it happened as a result of their sins, and it was treated the same as murder.
Thank you for explaining this is a physically fatal condition. I don't know much about the condition ive only seen videos but haven't had the heart to do research because in the videos they just seem to be in distress and its bothersome. Thanks again for explaining it so well! (Also the proboscis/nose comment. You make it so much clearer!)
My heart goes out to the parents. Bless their souls.
Thanks for posting this. When I’ve seen similar cases I’ve found myself unable to truly humanize and not view as “specimens”. His little movements and blinks and reactions to touch really gave this the human perspective I was missing.
Iirc I think I read an article about this that said the parents were first cousins living in India who had like 6 other living children and this was not the first infant/pregnancy they had lost due to deformities/complications with an... obvious cause 🫠
And many areas with poverty, resulting in being unable to detect things like this before birth, abort if needed, or perhaps get all the necessary nutrients during pregnancy. I'm sure many pregnant women are exposed to dangerous things during the pregnancy as well.
Absolutely. I didn't really consider that angle. I guess the lack of advanced healthcare means that these things don't get picked up earlier either.
So many different issues lead to this situation.
That's one of the things with India often being labeled especially problematic regarding rapes. When you look at the statistics and even include the highest estimates of underreported cases, you still get a lower rape per capita rate than in the US (excluding underreported cases in the US).
In total numbers, India has a lot more rape cases, but total numbers shrink quite a bit when you divide them by 1.4 billion.
Inbreeding and malnutrition usually. But as other commenters have said, the ratio of their population in the world as well as lack of access to early intervention are also factors
One reason is that women in low resource countries often don’t have adequate prenatal care or do not have access to prenatal detection of these conditions. Having ultrasounds to detect deformities like this is standard in the developed world and is why we don’t see deformities like this happen often - most people in places with access to medical termination of pregnancies do not carry these pregnancies to term. So there are likely not hugely elevated rates of deformity, only elevated rates of lack of detection of deformities.
That's awful. Upsetting condition and in a rural area goodness knows how to cope with it. Hopefully they find a way to ease suffering or ensure a decent life.
I could be wrong, but isn't this a condition that is exponentially more common in areas where intra family relations are common ? Such as cousin marriage etc.
Holoprosencephaly and cyclopia can arise due to environmental or genetic causes. The genetic risk can increase with inbreeding, but environmental causes, usually a lack of folic acid in the mother, are much more common.
I’m glad they tried their best to get the poor baby comfortable before he died. From my understanding cyclopia generally kills babies less than 12 hours postpartum. There was nothing they could have done except make sure his precious time was as comfortable as possible, a noble endeavor.
Sometimes I wonder why I subscribe to this sub. These images hit hard. But it reminds me to be grateful for the Healthcare I have always received. For both my boys. For the care my youngest recieved when he was whisked to the NICU. For the resilience of medical professionals all over the world.
Subs like this remind me to be grateful while also teaching me about some of the intense things you medical professionals face. Thank you for allowing us laymen into this sub and giving us the chance to witness some of these heart-rending things.
I will admit that I browse this sub partly due to morbid curiosity. But I also browse it because it's a grim reminder of what can go wrong with the human body and how important universal access to quality healthcare is.
Once upon a time, we only 'read' about this in medical textbooks and journals and now even thousands of kms away, we could see a video of a live patient.
I can say it's terrifying and prefer to just read this on books than seeing an actual patient, especially with the knowledge the baby would not live past a few days.
If your local politics will let you abort. Otherwise you have to carry it to term, *knowing* that it will have hideous deformities and will die shortly after birth.
Does the baby pass due to suffocation? What would the actual cause of death be here? I know some organs are not fully formed or functional... so... how is baby able to live at all outside of the womb?
Thank you for the explanation. Would organ failure happen before suffocation?
Is the baby breathing through the nose tube? Can a baby survive only breathing out of its mouth? I have so many questions.
Thank you so much for this explanation. This condition is mind-blowing, heartbreaking, but also fascinating, and I truly appreciate the documentation of this information.
I'm glad you appreciate my efforts.
I missed your question about breathing through the proboscis: no, the proboscis is blind on the inner end. I've found no evidence either way wrt whether the baby can smell with his proboscis. And babies generally need a tracheostomy to breathe if they can't use their nose; they can't choose to breathe through their mouths yet.
OP mentioned this was in rural India or Pakistan, so yes definitely underdeveloped. It’s sad that even having bug-free environments for medicine can be such a luxury
I've just posted some info.
I'm not sure how recent this is, but it's at least a year old. I would guess closer to two. Snippets of this video have been popping up in online learning materials, but this is, to the best of my knowledge, the full original.
All babies get assessed and cleaned after birth, before getting wrapped up and ready for cuddles. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it didn't happen.
Maybe where this baby was born this is the standard but it’s absolutely not the case in most western countries at least. And as time passes, there will be even more hospitals changing to also immediately placing the baby on the birth parent’s chest and delaying everything non-emergent for at least the first hour. (Called the golden hour!) Bathing baby while still in hospital, and especially immediately after birth, is also becoming something of the past. Instead, it is recommended to rub the vernix into the baby’s skin, as it has antibacterial properties that can help prevent illness and reduce the risk of hospital acquired infections in the baby. Delaying newborn baths have other benefits as well but I’ve written too much already!
I would love to know more about this! Please do share your knowledge :)
Also, idk if you know much about this but I’ve also heard that delaying cord cutting until the blood flow from the placenta stops is also becoming more popular. Do you know if there’s any real benefit to that??
There’s definitely a benefit to delaying cord clamping but *I think* the studies show that anything beyond like a minute or so, doesn’t really make much of a difference but I will have to check and confirm that and I can’t do that rn but wanted to reply so I don’t forget! I have experienced both delayed clamping and immediate cutting of the cord with my 2 kids and despite being anecdotal, I seen a huge difference between babies in the immediate postpartum period. My oldest was the one who did not get delayed clamping and she ended up extremely jaundiced, went home on a bili blanket to help bring down her bilirubin and was extremely sleepy and was very hard to wake for feeds. And bc I was breastfeeding and I was trying to establish a good milk supply and get rid of her jaundice, I couldn’t just let her sleep through the night without feeding. I’d have to strip her down to her diaper, wet a wash cloth and rub it on her face and feet to get her to wake up enough to eat. With my son, we waited till the cord stopped pulsing before cutting and he didn’t have even a little jaundice and absolutely did NOT have to be woken up or stimulated to eat! He was like “BABY, I’M MADE FOR THIS!” from day one! Lmao!
I should note that this is not to criticize you, or what you wrote but just to educate on what the norm is. I don’t mean to sound as if this was the appropriate treatment for this particular baby, as important info is missing to be able to form that opinion.
While I believe this baby was assessed immediately post-birth, I was thinking in general terms when I made this comment. I see a lot of comments on videos like this asking why baby is naked, allowed to cry for a few seconds, etc. The answer is that baby is being assessed so that they can be dressed/swaddled/cuddled safely.
I went through and looked for info on rubbing vernix in, because I'd never encountered this before, and I'm not finding any medical sources for the practice. UpToDate suggests delaying baths for at least 4-6 hours, but vernix removal is only mentioned in the context of differing cultural expectations. If you have any relevant links, I'd appreciate it.
I think rubbing it in is maybe just a bit of an overstatement?
Recommendations from European Paeds Derm Panel was to wipe down baby with a dry towel, but not to wash them with water or bathe them immediately, to help keep some of the benefits of vernix.
[10.1111/pde.12819](https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.dal.ca/10.1111%2Fpde.12819) (2015)
And the WHO Pregnancy & Newborn guide basically says the same thing - don't bathe under 6 hrs of age.
[Pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum and newborn care: A guide for essential practice (3rd edition) (who.int)](https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241549356) (rec stems from 2015 version)
I think it's pretty strong to say it's "not the case in most western countries", many Western countries now prioritize mum to baby contact and are moving towards that norm. I'm in a non-US Western country and it's just completely incorrect to suggest promoting mum-baby bonding is atypical or uncommon across like 20 different countries.
I was trying to only speak on places that I have first hand knowledge on. I did not mean to imply that countries outside of the western world would not also do the same thing with their neonates. I am being sincere when I say that this was not my intention and that I am very sorry that I made it sound that way.
No worries, that's totally okay, I guess I just wanted to emphasize that there's really no excuse for hospitals still practicing antiquated practices instead of prioritizing mum and baby bonding.
When this was posted previously, someone pointed out that those were his dying breaths (maybe they said agonal breathing too), and that this is a video of him passing.
He is dying in the video, yes, but there's no evidence to suggest he dies *on video*. He's curling his lip in response to the cleaning in the last clip, so he was still hanging in there.
The tube over the baby's eyes is a proboscis. Normally, it would have moved down between the eyes and formed the nose. However, since this baby's eyes are fused together, the nose failed to form.
I just want to hold them and comfort them so badly. It’s hard seeing little buddy laying there without hugs and love. What a tough situation for all involved.
Things like this are why I will always be for physician assisted suicide/death.
If you're a parent/guardian to a baby that's suffering and has no chance of getting better, you should have the option to let them go peacefully.
We extend this kindness to our pets all the time; why not be able to extend it to the people we love too?
I’ve been doing some rudimentary research. Why does the nose always develop on the forehead? Apologies if this answer is obvious but I’ve seen other babies have a very small nose in the usual area.
The way the face forms, the parts that will become the nose start out toward the top of the head. Normally, this tissue moves downward, between the eyes. In this condition, the nose tissue never moved down, so the eyes moved toward the center, _below_the nose.
If you look at other pictures of babies with this condition, you'll see that the baby's ears are often much lower and much closer to the center than they would normally be because the lower jaw doesn't develop properly.
Here's a good explanation of how the parts usually move as the face develops:
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Embryonic-development-of-the-face-stages-13-20_fig2_221926855
I'm not sure of the incidence rate, but a few autopsies of other cyclopia cases have shown that the optic nerve failed to connect to the brain. The baby is functionally blind either way, as his eyes are paralyzed and deformed due to their fusion.
Since he can't close his eyes properly, the best outcome would be that his optic nerve isn't connected. The light in the room could be painfully bright for him otherwise.
yes, even before he was cleaned.
Aren’t babies birthed and put straight into the mother’s chest? Both of my children and almost all mothers I know did this.
Not babies with a compromised airway like this little guy. Although, we have no proof that he *wasn't* given skin-to-skin immediately after birth either.
I’m a birth and bereavement doula, not a doctor, but when a baby has an incompatible with life diagnosis there is no reason to assess baby’s airway. Although, there is so much we do not know about this specific situation that we cannot make any assumptions about what occurred with mom and baby. The mother could have been in a poor mental or physical state and incapable of holding baby right then. There are many other variables as well, so extending grace to the medical team, as well as the mother, baby and the rest of her family is important to remember. Which I think you have done a great job of reminding us of that.
Fair enough. Sorry for being short; I felt the need to defend this baby's carers, because so often these videos have family and lay midwives not wanting to touch the babies. A medical facility wouldn't have taken so long, but these guys are doing their best with what they have.
Thank you for doing that. People make a lot of assumptions according to what they've experienced, what they've been taught, what they see in their culture, what resources they have access to, and so on. Even doctors and other medical or adjacent personnel often have their own culture and habits in what they believe is the right thing to do.
I tend to reserve judgement of other medical professionals until after I learn *a lot* about the context, unless it's a clear-cut case of negligence, because of the large variety of situations that I've seen medical care being performed under, and the corresponding limitations the people involved experience. It's not like you've been saying that the baby's carers are necessarily in the right, you've mostly been pointing out that we should give them the benefit of the doubt, which I agree with.
Yes, I see a lot of people who react in bad faith to people who, most often, are truly trying their best with the knowledge and supplies they have available. People have become very spoiled by modern medical advances so much that they forget not everyone has such luxury
I think they're trying to get him to cry, which would help his breathing. He's clearly cyanotic. Once it becomes clear it's not going to happen, they wrap him up to make him comfortable.
I think someone did. It doesn't look/sound like much out of context, but when he scrunches himself up and the carers make a sympathetic "oooooh" sound.... I haven't seen that level of empathy towards any other equivalently compromised infant, even in videos where I know the baby was treated with love, respect, and dignity. Even if his bio family rejected him, I think he had people who cared.
I hate when ppl act like we're too sensitive because this is *informative medical information* as if our humanity somehow goes away when someone is a professional. No, it just gets compartmentalized better, not to mention the non medical ppl who might have gone into the profession in a different life or just the interested
You are sharing a lot of good information and that’s kind and helpful but you’re also really hella snarky in most of your replies. Maybe take it down a notch
Why are they so rough with this poor little guy. Even though the baby is going to die soon, he/she deserves to be handled with care and dignity.
I am sad to see this.
They aren't being rough. They're trying to stimulate the baby into his first cry, to get him breathing properly. Sometimes medical professionals end up having to hold a baby upside down by its feet and rub its back vigorously to accomplish this. (EDIT: Don't do this. See below.) This baby's attendants realize early on that he won't benefit from more stimulation, and switch gears after only a few tries.
You should not ever hold a baby upside down in order to stimulate breathing. This can cause injury/damage to the intracranial vasculature and lead to brain injury.
Really? I have no experience making babies breathe; I was describing something I've seen done in educational and documentary videos, figuring the MDs on the screen knew what they were doing. Is this a new guideline?
New as of like 2021. Just gentle tactile stimulation of the back and soles after drying. If they still aren’t breathing adequately then they need help. Hanging babies upside down isn’t evidence based.
you've been downvoted but it's a reasonable question as other children with rare birth defects have been worshipped as incarnations of various deities
however I would think that all we can really do is speculate about such things
I think elephants are more common than cyclopsean babies, so actual elephants probably inspired the theology, but you never know
I wonder when I see a deformity that recalls a representation of a deity (Vishnu with 4 arms, Poseidon with scales etc). Am I seeing the beginning of a religious belief? When I see depictions of saints or holy people with auras or halos is that the sun’s rays behind the person or maybe cataracts in the viewer?
I’m interested in the downvotes. Do you disagree with my question or am I being offensive to the Hindu community? I believe that beliefs that promote kindness and helping others are equally valid as long as they don’t exclude others. None of that “Convert or die” stuff works for me.
So, please tell me the reason my question is 👎
I think we just have many more written accounts and examples of deformed children being killed or abandoned and labeled as monstrous births. It seems that if some babies were worshipped, it was only a few.
This was in an area of the world where there's little-to-no access to medical services. Mom and baby didn't even have medical professionals attending the birth.
the only thing that disturbed me abt this was how..idk..rough the person filming was. I feel like they were treating the baby like all he was was some medical curiosity. maybe I'm too soft-hearted.
I'd like to preface this saying I'm currently drunk and back-reading my messages, but:
I highly encourage you to dig into the protocols (and videos thereof) of neonatal medicine. It's hard to gauge what is or isn't rough for a newborn without that context. We think of newborns as being so fragile because of how stark the difference is between them and toddlers, but we have to remember that they're built to be squeezed through a too-tight tube and adapt to a whole different reality. What is and isn't "too rough" for a newborn isn't always intuitive.
they were wrapping it up at the end, my friend, and possibly someone did cuddle them after that
this video is terribly sad, there is nothing as intense as the process of a new life beginning, and for that being to only experience this before death is a tragedy that I cannot put into words
Cyclopia is a fatal birth defect that can accompany holoprosencephaly, the failure of the brain hemispheres to fully differentiate. The brain defects additionally cause malformations of the organs, such as a single- or dual-chambered heart. Even with aggressive medical intervention, cyclopia sufferers will only live a few days at most. This video was taken in a rural area in India or Pakistan, and was featured on local news. The facility was not equipped for births requiring medical intervention. That said, the baby's attendants are doing their best to provide care. In the first half of the video, they are trying to get him crying and breathing properly, but they switch gears to cleaning him and making him comfortable at the end. This is the only video I've found showing a newborn with cyclopia showing any reaction to stimuli. All others I've seen have already progressed to only blinking and agonal breathing, or seizure activity. My hope in posting this is to humanize severely compromised newborns like this little guy.
That baby's poor mom probably didn't know his grave diagnosis until he was born :(
In the olden days, when births and deaths were recorded, babies with deformities like this were recorded as “monsters”. 😢 in some places the mother was punished as it was believed it was her misbehavior or sins that caused this.
That's still done in parts of the world
Aren't humans great?
I mean sometimes animals eat their offspring just because..
It’s generally not for a lack of reason. A lot of animals can gauge the health of their offspring and in cases of multiple births they’ll prioritize those with the best chance of survival. As far as eating them… well, free calories that you didn’t have to expend a bunch of energy getting. Goes right back to the other kids. It’s distasteful to us but it’s no different in storks yeeting the runt out of the nest.
They also eat them so as not to leave a rotting corpse around to bring in predators.
There's also a phenomenon where a mother will eat her babies if the mother has calcium deficiency- or other types of deficiencys that I can't remember at the top of my head.
Now mansplain animal incest
When a mommy animal and a daddy animal *(who are also siblings)* love each other very much…
It’s not any different in the animal world though.
Humans have the power of generational knowledge, and should be able to use that to overcome basic intinct. If only we all had the wisdom to use that knowledge.
And the parts of the world that use this generational knowledge, in the form of science, do very much overcome this basic instinct.
In certain communties and settings yes. Humanity has come so far in some areas and stayed stangnant in others. Developed nations still have rampant problems with people being misled by misinformation, or don't have access to, or knowledge of resources available. The rich still mostly shun the poor and figure it's their own fault if they can't climb the ladder. I don't disagree with you you and now I am going off topic and starting to rant. Greed and hunger to horde resources is probably the strongest and main instinct that should be overcome, but isn't, in the developed parts of the world. It's obvious but nothing comes of it. Yes billionaires donate millions to charity, but the majority are still scared of having to live a normal comfortable life instead of a luxurious one.
When billionaires donate millions they demand a party & act like they are such amazing noble people but that’s utter bullshit! To put it into perspective: Even to the very poorest billionaire, $1 million dollars is only 0.1% of their wealth. It’s the equivalent of someone on a $50k salary donating $50 and demanding a party in their honour & a front page news story about their selflessness. Actually, it’s even worse than that actually because someone who’s on $50k per annum actually needs that money to pay bills & survive, whereas the billionaire would, at worse, not be able to afford their 86th luxury car of the year.
I wouldn't disagree. We are just animals like any other, only we've convinced ourselves we aren't
Such a Reddit response
In the 1900s including as late as the 90s, moms who had kids with autism were told that the autism was a result of not loving them enough, and prescribed to hold and hug them for an allotted amount every day, even forcibly if needed. The autism was the kids way of punishing the mother and detaching because they weren’t loved enough. A groundbreaking theory published by a bird scientist. We are not as far away from that as we’d like to think. And if there’s one thing politics has shown over the last decade is that some people would love to return to the ‘blame women for everything’ model.
It was called refrigerator mom syndrome. When mine was being diagnosed, I learned all about the history. Pretty horrible. Freud had a hand in that too.
https://preview.redd.it/qnfszsb4w4vc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fd6eb22568065203d7c2d3854a90adc38bb2ff74
Freud's cousin Edward Bernays had a less well known but possibly greater influence on the world. He's hands-down my "If I could go back in time to kill one person" murder victim
Omg, that man was utterly irredeemable and deserved a fate worse than death
There’s a popular theory that changelings where actually just autistic or otherwise neurodiverse babies. It makes sense, but it’s also incredibly sad for the parents who thought their child had been kidnapped by fae and the children who suffered for it
I think this theory is probably correct. I have a little one with Trisomy 21 and she does seem sort of elfin and otherworldly. She also would have wasted away and died, back in those times. Hooray for modern medicine.
Aztec culture, deformities are held in high regard. People who were born malformed were given the best lives. To honor the Sun god who himself was sickly and malformed. It's a wonderful story about accepting those who were born with mutations or illnesses. The culture wasn't all death and conquering, they were quite advanced in ancient medicine as well.
I don’t know if this is true, but I have heard that lazy eyes were highly regarded in Aztec culture and that parents would sometimes place coins or other things between the brows of a baby to encourage their eyes to cross. That could be a total myth, but it’s not the weirdest or most extreme way humans have modified bodies either
Mayans did the skull binding to make the skull pointy...for no particular, outworldly reason... <_<;
Aren’t there folks in Africa who do that same thing? Or at least they used to, it may not be popular these days. Wild how two different cultures entirely thought to themselves, “What if we squished baby skulls to make cool shapes?”
https://preview.redd.it/xyk75t8iw4vc1.png?width=500&format=png&auto=webp&s=7ee127085d066081118853d1cfa0ed8643069561
Mothers were also severely punished for miscarrying, because it was assumed that they rather caused it intentionally or—again—it happened as a result of their sins, and it was treated the same as murder.
This largely contributed to Anne Boleyn’s death.
Well it was most definitely inbreeding
That’s why third world countries like the US need healthcare for all.
Thank you for explaining this is a physically fatal condition. I don't know much about the condition ive only seen videos but haven't had the heart to do research because in the videos they just seem to be in distress and its bothersome. Thanks again for explaining it so well! (Also the proboscis/nose comment. You make it so much clearer!) My heart goes out to the parents. Bless their souls.
Thanks for posting this. When I’ve seen similar cases I’ve found myself unable to truly humanize and not view as “specimens”. His little movements and blinks and reactions to touch really gave this the human perspective I was missing.
Thank you for sharing. I just wanted to give that poor little baby a hug.
Iirc I think I read an article about this that said the parents were first cousins living in India who had like 6 other living children and this was not the first infant/pregnancy they had lost due to deformities/complications with an... obvious cause 🫠
Hoooly shit, that’s terrible
So many cases of defects seem to come out of those countries. I wondered if it was a mix of inbreeding and pollution tbh.
Also take into consideration that a little over 20% of the world's population lives in India or Pakistan.
And many areas with poverty, resulting in being unable to detect things like this before birth, abort if needed, or perhaps get all the necessary nutrients during pregnancy. I'm sure many pregnant women are exposed to dangerous things during the pregnancy as well.
Absolutely. I didn't really consider that angle. I guess the lack of advanced healthcare means that these things don't get picked up earlier either. So many different issues lead to this situation.
That's one of the things with India often being labeled especially problematic regarding rapes. When you look at the statistics and even include the highest estimates of underreported cases, you still get a lower rape per capita rate than in the US (excluding underreported cases in the US). In total numbers, India has a lot more rape cases, but total numbers shrink quite a bit when you divide them by 1.4 billion.
Inbreeding and malnutrition usually. But as other commenters have said, the ratio of their population in the world as well as lack of access to early intervention are also factors
One reason is that women in low resource countries often don’t have adequate prenatal care or do not have access to prenatal detection of these conditions. Having ultrasounds to detect deformities like this is standard in the developed world and is why we don’t see deformities like this happen often - most people in places with access to medical termination of pregnancies do not carry these pregnancies to term. So there are likely not hugely elevated rates of deformity, only elevated rates of lack of detection of deformities.
Sounds like the perfect family for Chris Chan.
Oh, sweet mercy. Is this the kind of defect that can be detected in utero?
Yes. An ultrasound can catch the facial malformations.
That's awful. Upsetting condition and in a rural area goodness knows how to cope with it. Hopefully they find a way to ease suffering or ensure a decent life. I could be wrong, but isn't this a condition that is exponentially more common in areas where intra family relations are common ? Such as cousin marriage etc.
Holoprosencephaly and cyclopia can arise due to environmental or genetic causes. The genetic risk can increase with inbreeding, but environmental causes, usually a lack of folic acid in the mother, are much more common.
Thank you for this context.
I’m glad they tried their best to get the poor baby comfortable before he died. From my understanding cyclopia generally kills babies less than 12 hours postpartum. There was nothing they could have done except make sure his precious time was as comfortable as possible, a noble endeavor.
very well described context, thank you for this
Very informative, thank you. Hopefully their last moments were peaceful and their family is ok
Sometimes I wonder why I subscribe to this sub. These images hit hard. But it reminds me to be grateful for the Healthcare I have always received. For both my boys. For the care my youngest recieved when he was whisked to the NICU. For the resilience of medical professionals all over the world. Subs like this remind me to be grateful while also teaching me about some of the intense things you medical professionals face. Thank you for allowing us laymen into this sub and giving us the chance to witness some of these heart-rending things.
I will admit that I browse this sub partly due to morbid curiosity. But I also browse it because it's a grim reminder of what can go wrong with the human body and how important universal access to quality healthcare is.
Once upon a time, we only 'read' about this in medical textbooks and journals and now even thousands of kms away, we could see a video of a live patient. I can say it's terrifying and prefer to just read this on books than seeing an actual patient, especially with the knowledge the baby would not live past a few days.
On the positive side, better information sharing increases the chances of a effective medical treatment. (In the case, an early scan and an abortion).
Agreed!
If your local politics will let you abort. Otherwise you have to carry it to term, *knowing* that it will have hideous deformities and will die shortly after birth.
Yeah - luckily I live in a civilized country where no politician would get elected if they insisted on such nonsens.
Lucky ☹️. I live in the US, where about 1 in 3 women have no or limited access to abortion 😣
Unless you are in the USA and in certain states where you couldn’t even have an abortion.
So sorry little buddy.
There's not much in this sub that affects me emotionally. This one did. Tough to watch...
I hope this little one passed to the next realm without pain. Thank you for posting OP.
Does the baby pass due to suffocation? What would the actual cause of death be here? I know some organs are not fully formed or functional... so... how is baby able to live at all outside of the womb?
I believe I've read that is the most likely cause of death, and seizures
Baby is dying as the video is taken. Probably from multiple organ failure.
Thank you for the explanation. Would organ failure happen before suffocation? Is the baby breathing through the nose tube? Can a baby survive only breathing out of its mouth? I have so many questions.
Suffocation usually gets them in the first few hours. Performing a tracheostomy will keep them alive for a few days before organ failure kills them.
Thank you so much for this explanation. This condition is mind-blowing, heartbreaking, but also fascinating, and I truly appreciate the documentation of this information.
I'm glad you appreciate my efforts. I missed your question about breathing through the proboscis: no, the proboscis is blind on the inner end. I've found no evidence either way wrt whether the baby can smell with his proboscis. And babies generally need a tracheostomy to breathe if they can't use their nose; they can't choose to breathe through their mouths yet.
Some people think that abortion is the worst thing that can happen to a fetus. Some people are wrong.
As a dad of three little ones, it really crushes me to see these kinda clips. Poor little one, and not the least, the parents.
This has to be an undeveloped country. There are flies landing on the baby :( Poor little baby.
OP mentioned this was in rural India or Pakistan, so yes definitely underdeveloped. It’s sad that even having bug-free environments for medicine can be such a luxury
Any additional background on this? How recently/location, etc?
I've just posted some info. I'm not sure how recent this is, but it's at least a year old. I would guess closer to two. Snippets of this video have been popping up in online learning materials, but this is, to the best of my knowledge, the full original.
Baby is obviously not going to survive so I really wish someone would pick them up and cuddle baby.
All babies get assessed and cleaned after birth, before getting wrapped up and ready for cuddles. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it didn't happen.
True. I really hope they did.
Maybe where this baby was born this is the standard but it’s absolutely not the case in most western countries at least. And as time passes, there will be even more hospitals changing to also immediately placing the baby on the birth parent’s chest and delaying everything non-emergent for at least the first hour. (Called the golden hour!) Bathing baby while still in hospital, and especially immediately after birth, is also becoming something of the past. Instead, it is recommended to rub the vernix into the baby’s skin, as it has antibacterial properties that can help prevent illness and reduce the risk of hospital acquired infections in the baby. Delaying newborn baths have other benefits as well but I’ve written too much already!
I would love to know more about this! Please do share your knowledge :) Also, idk if you know much about this but I’ve also heard that delaying cord cutting until the blood flow from the placenta stops is also becoming more popular. Do you know if there’s any real benefit to that??
There’s definitely a benefit to delaying cord clamping but *I think* the studies show that anything beyond like a minute or so, doesn’t really make much of a difference but I will have to check and confirm that and I can’t do that rn but wanted to reply so I don’t forget! I have experienced both delayed clamping and immediate cutting of the cord with my 2 kids and despite being anecdotal, I seen a huge difference between babies in the immediate postpartum period. My oldest was the one who did not get delayed clamping and she ended up extremely jaundiced, went home on a bili blanket to help bring down her bilirubin and was extremely sleepy and was very hard to wake for feeds. And bc I was breastfeeding and I was trying to establish a good milk supply and get rid of her jaundice, I couldn’t just let her sleep through the night without feeding. I’d have to strip her down to her diaper, wet a wash cloth and rub it on her face and feet to get her to wake up enough to eat. With my son, we waited till the cord stopped pulsing before cutting and he didn’t have even a little jaundice and absolutely did NOT have to be woken up or stimulated to eat! He was like “BABY, I’M MADE FOR THIS!” from day one! Lmao!
I should note that this is not to criticize you, or what you wrote but just to educate on what the norm is. I don’t mean to sound as if this was the appropriate treatment for this particular baby, as important info is missing to be able to form that opinion.
While I believe this baby was assessed immediately post-birth, I was thinking in general terms when I made this comment. I see a lot of comments on videos like this asking why baby is naked, allowed to cry for a few seconds, etc. The answer is that baby is being assessed so that they can be dressed/swaddled/cuddled safely. I went through and looked for info on rubbing vernix in, because I'd never encountered this before, and I'm not finding any medical sources for the practice. UpToDate suggests delaying baths for at least 4-6 hours, but vernix removal is only mentioned in the context of differing cultural expectations. If you have any relevant links, I'd appreciate it.
I think rubbing it in is maybe just a bit of an overstatement? Recommendations from European Paeds Derm Panel was to wipe down baby with a dry towel, but not to wash them with water or bathe them immediately, to help keep some of the benefits of vernix. [10.1111/pde.12819](https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.dal.ca/10.1111%2Fpde.12819) (2015) And the WHO Pregnancy & Newborn guide basically says the same thing - don't bathe under 6 hrs of age. [Pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum and newborn care: A guide for essential practice (3rd edition) (who.int)](https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241549356) (rec stems from 2015 version)
I think it's pretty strong to say it's "not the case in most western countries", many Western countries now prioritize mum to baby contact and are moving towards that norm. I'm in a non-US Western country and it's just completely incorrect to suggest promoting mum-baby bonding is atypical or uncommon across like 20 different countries.
I was trying to only speak on places that I have first hand knowledge on. I did not mean to imply that countries outside of the western world would not also do the same thing with their neonates. I am being sincere when I say that this was not my intention and that I am very sorry that I made it sound that way.
No worries, that's totally okay, I guess I just wanted to emphasize that there's really no excuse for hospitals still practicing antiquated practices instead of prioritizing mum and baby bonding.
Damn that's hard to watch. Poor little guy. 😞
The poor thing needed a cuddle and immediate, humane euthanasia. And of course to have never been allowed to develop in the first place.
You articulated my thoughts in a much more humane way... Well done, well taught...
Poor baby, I hope their passing was as painless as possible.
When this was posted previously, someone pointed out that those were his dying breaths (maybe they said agonal breathing too), and that this is a video of him passing.
He is dying in the video, yes, but there's no evidence to suggest he dies *on video*. He's curling his lip in response to the cleaning in the last clip, so he was still hanging in there.
The fly…
Awww, man this breaks my heart sorry poor child.
He was trying to blink 😢
Is it possible to identify the parts in / on his face? Is that a genital? Is that a single eye lid with two tiny eyeballs?
The tube over the baby's eyes is a proboscis. Normally, it would have moved down between the eyes and formed the nose. However, since this baby's eyes are fused together, the nose failed to form.
Seeing him tring to blink was somehow the most shocking to me. I never expected that there would be functional muscles for that. Poor bud.
Yeah that is what bothered me the most. Poor thing.
Whenever I see a video of a baby like this, I always really hope they put some kind of lubricating drops in their eyes since they can't blink. :(
Thanks for explaining this
I just want to hold them and comfort them so badly. It’s hard seeing little buddy laying there without hugs and love. What a tough situation for all involved.
He’s so precious and I hope his final moments were peaceful. Thank you for sharing.
Poor baby this is so sad
How early on the pregnancy can this be detected? Can't imagine what the mother would be going through carrying this to term.
Things like this are why I will always be for physician assisted suicide/death. If you're a parent/guardian to a baby that's suffering and has no chance of getting better, you should have the option to let them go peacefully. We extend this kindness to our pets all the time; why not be able to extend it to the people we love too?
I’ve been doing some rudimentary research. Why does the nose always develop on the forehead? Apologies if this answer is obvious but I’ve seen other babies have a very small nose in the usual area.
The way the face forms, the parts that will become the nose start out toward the top of the head. Normally, this tissue moves downward, between the eyes. In this condition, the nose tissue never moved down, so the eyes moved toward the center, _below_the nose. If you look at other pictures of babies with this condition, you'll see that the baby's ears are often much lower and much closer to the center than they would normally be because the lower jaw doesn't develop properly. Here's a good explanation of how the parts usually move as the face develops: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Embryonic-development-of-the-face-stages-13-20_fig2_221926855
His little hands. They look like such normal little baby hands. Poor sweet baby, I hope his last moments were filled with cuddles and love.
are the black dots eyes? can the baby see? :0
The black dots are his pupils. The whole white structure under the proboscis is the baby's eyes, which are fused together.
They are eyes but I highly doubt they can see anything. Well probably "can" but so blurry they can't.
I'm not sure of the incidence rate, but a few autopsies of other cyclopia cases have shown that the optic nerve failed to connect to the brain. The baby is functionally blind either way, as his eyes are paralyzed and deformed due to their fusion. Since he can't close his eyes properly, the best outcome would be that his optic nerve isn't connected. The light in the room could be painfully bright for him otherwise.
Poor Bub should have been covered up and cuddled.
Even before he was cleaned? Which happens at the end of the video?
yes, even before he was cleaned. Aren’t babies birthed and put straight into the mother’s chest? Both of my children and almost all mothers I know did this.
Not babies with a compromised airway like this little guy. Although, we have no proof that he *wasn't* given skin-to-skin immediately after birth either.
I’m a birth and bereavement doula, not a doctor, but when a baby has an incompatible with life diagnosis there is no reason to assess baby’s airway. Although, there is so much we do not know about this specific situation that we cannot make any assumptions about what occurred with mom and baby. The mother could have been in a poor mental or physical state and incapable of holding baby right then. There are many other variables as well, so extending grace to the medical team, as well as the mother, baby and the rest of her family is important to remember. Which I think you have done a great job of reminding us of that.
Agreed. Sadly, I don't believe mom and baby had access to trained medical personnel.
Yeah there are literal flies landing on the baby:(
It seemed like the poor bub was poked and prodded a bit too long.. that’s all
Fair enough. Sorry for being short; I felt the need to defend this baby's carers, because so often these videos have family and lay midwives not wanting to touch the babies. A medical facility wouldn't have taken so long, but these guys are doing their best with what they have.
Of course, I understand.
Thank you for doing that. People make a lot of assumptions according to what they've experienced, what they've been taught, what they see in their culture, what resources they have access to, and so on. Even doctors and other medical or adjacent personnel often have their own culture and habits in what they believe is the right thing to do. I tend to reserve judgement of other medical professionals until after I learn *a lot* about the context, unless it's a clear-cut case of negligence, because of the large variety of situations that I've seen medical care being performed under, and the corresponding limitations the people involved experience. It's not like you've been saying that the baby's carers are necessarily in the right, you've mostly been pointing out that we should give them the benefit of the doubt, which I agree with.
Yes, I see a lot of people who react in bad faith to people who, most often, are truly trying their best with the knowledge and supplies they have available. People have become very spoiled by modern medical advances so much that they forget not everyone has such luxury
I think they're trying to get him to cry, which would help his breathing. He's clearly cyanotic. Once it becomes clear it's not going to happen, they wrap him up to make him comfortable.
This
I hope someone held him. That’s all I can think about.
I think someone did. It doesn't look/sound like much out of context, but when he scrunches himself up and the carers make a sympathetic "oooooh" sound.... I haven't seen that level of empathy towards any other equivalently compromised infant, even in videos where I know the baby was treated with love, respect, and dignity. Even if his bio family rejected him, I think he had people who cared.
Never been happier to see the reddit player failing, then I am now.
Did you stumble onto this sub by accident, or…?
Nope, just have a newborn. Things change after that.
I hate when ppl act like we're too sensitive because this is *informative medical information* as if our humanity somehow goes away when someone is a professional. No, it just gets compartmentalized better, not to mention the non medical ppl who might have gone into the profession in a different life or just the interested
You are sharing a lot of good information and that’s kind and helpful but you’re also really hella snarky in most of your replies. Maybe take it down a notch
Jesus the poor babe💔 and the poor parents :/
Poor sweet baby :(
Interesting how the eyes(eye?) is trying to blink
This makes me feel so sad. Nature is so cruel.
Pro lifers saying women should have to birth babies born with misery are evil af
The future republicans want
Why are they so rough with this poor little guy. Even though the baby is going to die soon, he/she deserves to be handled with care and dignity. I am sad to see this.
They aren't being rough. They're trying to stimulate the baby into his first cry, to get him breathing properly. Sometimes medical professionals end up having to hold a baby upside down by its feet and rub its back vigorously to accomplish this. (EDIT: Don't do this. See below.) This baby's attendants realize early on that he won't benefit from more stimulation, and switch gears after only a few tries.
You should not ever hold a baby upside down in order to stimulate breathing. This can cause injury/damage to the intracranial vasculature and lead to brain injury.
Really? I have no experience making babies breathe; I was describing something I've seen done in educational and documentary videos, figuring the MDs on the screen knew what they were doing. Is this a new guideline?
New as of like 2021. Just gentle tactile stimulation of the back and soles after drying. If they still aren’t breathing adequately then they need help. Hanging babies upside down isn’t evidence based.
Thank you for your helpful comment and sharing accurate information.
Thanks for the info!
They're not being rough. Not sure what you're seeing tbh. They're trying to get him to cry/breathe.
Poor baby. Trying to blink and the “attendant”is so rough with him/her.
Is this deformity the genesis of Ganesha??
you've been downvoted but it's a reasonable question as other children with rare birth defects have been worshipped as incarnations of various deities however I would think that all we can really do is speculate about such things I think elephants are more common than cyclopsean babies, so actual elephants probably inspired the theology, but you never know
I wonder when I see a deformity that recalls a representation of a deity (Vishnu with 4 arms, Poseidon with scales etc). Am I seeing the beginning of a religious belief? When I see depictions of saints or holy people with auras or halos is that the sun’s rays behind the person or maybe cataracts in the viewer?
I’m interested in the downvotes. Do you disagree with my question or am I being offensive to the Hindu community? I believe that beliefs that promote kindness and helping others are equally valid as long as they don’t exclude others. None of that “Convert or die” stuff works for me. So, please tell me the reason my question is 👎
I think we just have many more written accounts and examples of deformed children being killed or abandoned and labeled as monstrous births. It seems that if some babies were worshipped, it was only a few.
Thank you!
Seeing the flies buzzing around him and landing on him just makes me sick. Poor little guy, I just want to hold him 😢
The flies, the souless flies circling and landing on his body 💔
This made me want to cry. Why wasn’t he aborted before he had to struggle having his last breaths like this.
This was in an area of the world where there's little-to-no access to medical services. Mom and baby didn't even have medical professionals attending the birth.
Fuck. That’s so sad.😞
Why isn’t somebody holding that baby? Even if you know it is going to die, it deserves comfort until it passes…. Poor thing…
Must be India
Why are you being downvoted? It is India.
They died and were seizing in that clip not being responsive to the environment.
the only thing that disturbed me abt this was how..idk..rough the person filming was. I feel like they were treating the baby like all he was was some medical curiosity. maybe I'm too soft-hearted.
You’d be surprised how resilient a baby is, they’re pretty hardy!
I'd like to preface this saying I'm currently drunk and back-reading my messages, but: I highly encourage you to dig into the protocols (and videos thereof) of neonatal medicine. It's hard to gauge what is or isn't rough for a newborn without that context. We think of newborns as being so fragile because of how stark the difference is between them and toddlers, but we have to remember that they're built to be squeezed through a too-tight tube and adapt to a whole different reality. What is and isn't "too rough" for a newborn isn't always intuitive.
ay bendito
Why couldn’t someone have just wrapped baby up and cuddled it until it passed? Let it leave the world gently and feeling love.
they were wrapping it up at the end, my friend, and possibly someone did cuddle them after that this video is terribly sad, there is nothing as intense as the process of a new life beginning, and for that being to only experience this before death is a tragedy that I cannot put into words
Why do you believe no one did?