Hand deformities in babies to provide doctors with a puzzle

Suspicious, striking – these are the words medical professionals use to describe the accumulation of malformations in newborns in a Gelsenkirchen-based hospital. Three babies were born there between mid-June and early September, with the wrong educated hands. On each Hand palm and fingers of the babies are created only in a rudimentary form.

The type of malformations is reminiscent of the thalidomide scandal of the 1960s, the biggest drug scandal in history. At the time, a drug with the drug thalidomide had caused, was Pregnant prescribed against Nausea, malformations of the limbs.

In the case of the Gelsenkirchen-based cases, the cause is currently unclear, it is conceivable that the accumulation is a purely statistical. “That now may be a random accumulation. We find, however, the short period of time in which we now see these three cases is striking,” writes the Sankt Marien-Hospital Buer in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, in a message on its website.

“Malformations in infants we need to take seriously”

According to a Federal evaluation of the perinatal statistics of the Institute for quality assurance and transparency in health care (IQTIG) be in 2017 in Germany 6884 children with malformations in hospitals born, as the Ministry announced. The be about 0.89 percent of the newborns. The perinatal statistics recorded accordingly, however, only the number of malformations-born children – it contains no information about the type of the malformation. As is often the extremities were affected, cannot be determined.

Regional data are collected according to the Federal Ministry of health for the malformation register, Saxony-Anhalt and the birth registry “Mainz model”. Data from two regional registers would be reported to the European registry EUROCAT, the since 1979, and currently, data from 23 European countries included. In Saxony-Anhalt, there were reported to be in the year 2017, an increased number of Armfehlbildungen in the newborn. The competent Ministry had called the Numbers, after from France a accumulation of Armfehlbildungen it became known. In the administrative district of Ain to the North-East of Lyon between 2000 and 2014, 18 babies have been born, therefore, with a malformations of the upper limbs.

“The reports of malformations in infants we need to take seriously,” said Laumann on Friday, according to a message. “There is no speculation can help, however. Rather, the possible causes with the due diligence needs to be investigated.”

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