Enbryology / All About Embryology

Human embryos are subject to disease, abnormal development, and abnormal growth. Decline and death can occur at any stage, but since most deaths occur in the first two or three weeks of development they usually escape notice. Probably little more than half of all zygotes reach full-term birth. Most abnormalities resulting from faulty development originate within the first seven weeks of pregnancy, before the prospective mother is aware of her condition. Abnormalities that do occur in living infants tend toward the milder types, since the severe mishaps commonly terminate development before birth.

Folklore maintains that a pregnant woman may “mark” her baby through incurring physical injuries or becoming subjected to horrors or repulsive sights. As there are no nervous connections between mother and fetus, such beliefs lack foundation. Moreover, practically all of the alleged causative experiences occur long after the “related” abnormalities have been established in the embryo.

Defective health of the mother can, in some instances, become a cause of the physical impairment or death of a fetus. Certain infectious diseases, for example, may result in fetal injury; such related causative organisms can be a virus (German measles), a spirochetal microorganism (syphilis), or a protozoon parasite (toxoplasmosis). Also, placental disorders, malformations of the mother's reproductive organs, and inadequate functioning of her endocrines may provide an unfavourable environment for normal development. Birth itself imposes the risk of oxygen deficiency or other injury; either may result in some malfunctioning of the brain.

Teratology

Teratology is concerned with all features of abnormal generation and development of the embryo (embryogenesis) and their end products. The incidence of defective development is high. One infant in 14 that survive the neonatal period bears an abnormality of some kind and degree, and half of these babies have more than one malformation. Internal, concealed defects are more numerous than external ones, and some defects do not become apparent until childhood. One baby in 40 is born with a structural defect that needs treatment. Some types of abnormality are commoner in males (e.g., pyloric stenosis, the narrowing of the opening between the stomach and the intestine), while other types predominate in females (e.g., dislocated hip). Besides obvious congenital defects, there are aberrations at the molecular level known as inborn errors of metabolism. In these an enzyme deficiency blocks the course of intermediary metabolism and results in abnormal chemical functioning. Such errors involve proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, and pigments. The abnormal products may be stored or excreted.

Important among causes of abnormalities are hereditary factors. Such include gene mutations, which may become Mendelian dominants (e.g., fused fingers, which need be inherited from only one parent to appear in the offspring), recessives (e.g., albinism, which does not become evident unless its gene is inherited from both parents), or sex-linked factors (e.g., hemophilia). Besides the heritable defects, whose possibilities of recurrence can be estimated, there are many genetic results that are due to chance, are not passed on, and do not occur in other offspring. An unequal distribution of chromosomes during meiosis, leading to abnormal assortments, occurs in somatic (nonsex) chromosomes (e.g., Down's syndrome) and in sex chromosomes (e.g., Klinefelter's syndrome).

Environmental factors, both external and internal, are also important. Among physical agents, mechanical pressures or blows are no longer considered to be significant because of the protection supplied by the uterus and the fluid-filled amniotic sac. On the other hand, irradiation is a wholly effective physical agency, as experiments have amply proved. Various chemical agents, used experimentally on pregnant animals, are highly teratogenetic (productive of physical defects within the uterus), and at least one drug (thalidomide) has demonstrated its potency on human embryos. Deficiencies of some fetal hormones are associated causally with bodily defects (e.g., male hormone and false hermaphroditism, a condition in which the gonads are of one sex but some appearances suggest the other). Similarly, hormonal excess can be productive (e.g., growth-promoting hormone and gigantism).

There appear to be several ways in which teratogenetic agents can affect susceptible embryonic cells. But whatever the manner of interference may be, the final result is probably either cell impairment or death or a changed rate of growth. Either of these measures puts local development out of step with adjoining parts and upsets the coordinated schedule of development.

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