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Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Congenital disorder

Most health insurance excludes congenital disorder. What is a congenital disorder? Here is a description from Wikipedia.

A congenital disorder is any medical condition that is present at birth. However, a congenital disorder can be recognized before birth (prenatally), at birth, years later, or never.

The term congenital does not imply or exclude a genetic cause. Congenital disorders can be a result of genetic abnormalities, the intrauterine environment, a mixture of both, errors of morphogenesis, or unknown factors.

Congenital conditions can be referred to as diseases, defects, disorders, anomalies, or simply genetic differences or uncomfortable. The usage overlaps, but also involves a value judgement as to the harmfulness of the condition. In particular, people may disagree as to whether a specific physical anomaly should be considered a birth defect or a normal variation.

A congenital disorder can have trivial or grave consequences. The most severe, such as anencephaly, are incompatible with life. Others, such as congenital tumors, vary from causing stillbirth to requiring fetal intervention or special delivery procedures such as the EXIT procedure, to needing surgery in the neonatal period.

The most common congenital tumor is teratoma. Congenital physical anomalies (birth defects) are a leading cause of death in early infancy, accounting for the deaths of nearly 2 out every 1000 infants in the United States.

"Congenital disorders" is a broad category that includes a variety of conditions. Congenital disorders include minor physical anomalies (e.g., a birthmark), severe malformations of single systems (e.g., congenital heart disease or dysmelia), and combinations of abnormalities affecting several parts of the body. Congenital defects of metabolism are also considered congenital disorders.

For more details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congenital

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