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Rare Congenital Disorder Leaves Super Baby Faith Without Eyes
November 14, 2009 by Cathy Ribble
Filed under News
Little Faith Wildshuetz was born with a rare congenital disorder which has left her without eyes and completely blind.
“We just felt that our faith in God and his plan and purpose for her was what was going to carry us through this,” Bridget Wildshuetz said. “So at that point, we said, ‘We’re going to name her Faith.’”
Their motto has become the scripture found in Hebrews 11:1, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,” and their mantra has become Jeremy Camp’s There is Faith.
Faith was diagnosed with severe bilateral microphthalmia, a disorder which results in minimal eye development. In severe cases, that can mean the absence of eye tissue and the globe in the eye socket area. The condition is linked to chromosomal disorders and environmental causes such as exposure to chemicals, but no specific cause has been identified. About one in every 10,000 births are affected by some form of microphthalmia.
Sometimes one eye is affected, while the other eye is normal. Both of Faith’s eyes are affected, and she is completely blind. She also has difficulty in getting enough oxygen because she has very small sinuses.
“She’s 100 percent totally blind,” Mike Wildscheutz said. “She’s never going to be able to see anything. It’s just basically an empty socket.”
In Faith’s case, she was able to be fitted with conformers, which are clear plastic prosthetics with a peg or stem for easy insertion and removal. Conformers are the first step towards prosthetic eyes, and they expand the eye socket, stretching the eyelid and allowing proper growth of the face structure.
During these difficult financial times, the family is struggling to keep up with utilities and day-to-day expenses. Faith was finally able to go home from the hospital in early October after nearly a month. A hospital dismissal is great news, but that is also when the medical bills usually start arriving.
Mike is a mining engineer who was laid off from his supervisor job in October 2008, and Bridget is an elementary school P.E. teacher. The Kyle, Texas, family has a support network including family, friends and church, but expenses can be overwhelming. The Wildshuetz family could use some additional help.
Donate to Super Baby Faith’s benefit fund.
To follow her journey on Twitter: @SuperBabyFaith
Further updates on her condition and progress, visit www.SuperBabyFaith.com.
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Designer babies for sale in L.A.
March 2, 2009 by Baby Chums
Filed under News
Designer babies are closer to reality, choosing eye color, skin complexion, sex, hair color and more may be the future of today.
A Los Angeles clinic, “Fertility Institutes” claims it will shortly help couples select gender and physical traits in a baby when they undergo a form of fertility treatment called, “PGD”.
The procedure called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, (PGD) has been used for the medical purpose of averting life-threatening diseases in children, the science behind it has quietly progressed sideways to the point that it could potentially be used to create designer babies.
Whether Fertility Institutes are able to deliver on its claims of trait selection is unclear, though what is clear is that state or federal regulations in the U.S. will not thwart any attempts made. Their website claims that, “PREDICTIVE GENOMICS” will be available shortly.
PGD is a technique whereby a three-day-old embryo, consisting of about six cells, is tested in a lab to see if it carries a particular genetic disease. Embryos free of that disease are implanted in the mother’s womb. Introduced in the 1990s, it has allowed thousands of parents to avoid passing on deadly disorders to their children.
In a recent U.S. survey of 999 people who sought genetic counseling, a majority said they supported prenatal genetic tests for the elimination of certain serious diseases. The survey found that 56 percent supported using them to counter blindness and 75 percent for mental retardation.
More provocatively, about 10 percent of respondents said they would want genetic testing for athletic ability, while another 10 percent voted for improved height. Nearly 13 percent backed the approach to select for superior intelligence, according to the survey conducted by researchers at the New York University School of Medicine.
Embryo screening, for example, is sometimes used to create a genetically matched “savior sibling” — a younger sister or brother whose healthy cells can be harvested to treat an older sibling with a serious illness.
