Anencephaly

In 2006, this bizarre-looking baby was born in Charikot, the headquarters of Dolakha district, attracting a huge number of onlookers to witness the astonishing sight. The neck-less baby with its head almost totally sunk into the upper part of the body and with extraordinarily large eyeballs literally popping out of the eye-sockets, was born to Nir Bahadur Karki and Suntali Karki at the Gaurishnkar Hospital in Charikot.

The baby suffers from a cephalic disorder called Anencephaly that results from a neural tube defect that occurs when the cephalic (head) end of the neural tube fails to close. Children born with this condition lack the forebrain which is responsible for cognition i.e thinking. The remaining brain tissue is often exposed—not covered by bone or skin. There is no cure or standard treatment for anencephaly and the prognosis for patients is poor. Most anencephalic babies do not survive birth, accounting for 55% of non-aborted cases. If the infant is not stillborn, then he or she will usually die within a few hours or days after birth from cardiorespiratory arrest.