Babies Born with Rare Disease on Rise: Research

Number of babies born with gastroschisis, a birth defect that causes a newborn's organs to jut out of the abdomen, has doubled since 1995, a new study by the University of South Florida (USF) revealed.

The researchers observed 4,713 cases of gastroschisis in 15 states from 1995 to 2005. They found that this birth defect was common among babies born to mothers below 20.

 For every 10,000 almost 11.45 cases of gastroschisis were found in women below 20 , almost double of women between 20-24 years old. The researchers were not sure of the possible cause of gastroschisis. A mother's exposure to certain chemicals may be one of the reasons for the malformation, reported Reuters Health.

Mothers who gave birth in their early twenties had a 5.8 percent increase each year in the risk of having a child born with gastroschisis, the research published in the journal, Obstetrics & Gynecology, said. The number of teenage mothers giving birth to babies with gastroschisis saw an increase of 6.8 percent every year.

However, number of babies born with the defect remained steady among the Asian women and Native American women. "In the multivariable analysis, using non-Hispanic whites as the referent group, non-Hispanic black women had the lowest risk of having a gastroschisis-affected pregnancy," the authors noted in the study.

Reuters Health reported that a previous study done on Washington women found that exposure to the weed killer atrazine increased the possibility of having a baby with gastrochisis. "I don't think there's a clear explanation for why the rates are going up," James Robbins, a professor who studies birth defects at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences told Reuters Health. He also said that smoking can be a risk factor, but he doesn't think that's behind the pattern detected in the study.