Nickolas Coke, boy born without brain, dies at 3
PUEBLO, CO. Nickolas Coke, a Colorado boy who survived three years despite being born without a brain, has died.
The boy from Pueblo, Colo., was born with anencephaly, a condition that caused him to only have a brain stem.
The National Center for Biotechnology Information says most babies born with anencephaly live only a few days. The center says it occurs in 1 out of 10,000 births but the exact number is unknown because many of these pregnancies result in miscarriage.
Nickolas' grandmother, Sherri Kohut, tells KOAA-TV that she believes Nickolas came down with a virus. She says he had difficulty breathing Wednesday and eventually stopped. She says three attempts to revive him failed.
Relatives say Nickolas survived without special medical equipment but required several kinds of medicine.
Kohut says Nickolas taught his family how to love and about the strength of family. She recalls him laughing as he played among pumpkins recently.
"He was our hero because he showed the strength if I can do this anything can be done," Kohut told KOAA-TV. "He will always be remembered."
The exact cause of anencephaly is unknown, according to the National Institutes of Health, but possible causes include environmental toxins and low intake of folic acid by the mother during pregnancy.
The NIH says there is good evidence getting sufficient levels of folic acid could reduce chances of neural tube defects like anencephaly by 50 percent.
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Modernization has killed evolution. Instead of leaving the weak to wane away & prevent more illness, society cradles them & allows them to procreate. Bipolar disorder, ADHD, Schizophrenia. All of these would have been eradicated in pre-society. Instead of guarding the gene pool, we allow disease to survive, creating "compassion." Instead of keeping small populations, we spew forth more that we cannot support & when 1 child dies, we forget the starving, cold homeless people & animals. We forget about the wars we are constantly fighting, & the hurricanes people died in & worry over 1 family with 1 child doing just fine.
Abortion should be mandatory for hard drug users, individuals with genetic disorders passed down to their kids & the generally useless. We wouldn't need a March of Dimes if people would decide not to perpetuate illness as righteousness. Remember, cleanliness is next to godliness. So keep your nose clean...
I have a suggestion for you NHIE10101, rather than curse the darkness why not try to light a candle. Since you don't seem to be too bright let me spell it out for you. Spend some of your energy trying to help the people you accuse others of forgetting. There are plenty of people in need of help but no one needs the BS that you are offering.
My daughter chose to terminate her preganancy. It was not an easy decision. She loved the baby. But the problem was severe and obvious on the ultrasound images. There is a serious risk to the mother's health in attempting to carry an anacephalic fetus to full term. I supported her in the hardest decision she ever had to make. If she chose to go full term, and the baby survived however long it could, I would have supported her in that decision.
These decisions are highly personal. Cost should not have to be a factor. I work in the hospital where she was diagnosed. The day we got the news I walked through the huge crowd on the sidewalk who gathered there because there is no smoking on the hospital grounds. As I walked past all the pregnant women, and cardiac and cancer patients, chain smoking cigarrettes before their medical appointments, I thought about how unfair life is. Then I got over it.
I JUST SAW JOE BIDEN ON CSPAN AND HE LOOKS ALIVE AND WELL!
You tell us to show compassion, I wonder how much compassion you show when you see a homeless person or hear of a homeless family on the street. Or how much compassion you've shown with your pocket book during the aftermath of Sandy or Katrina. Or how much money you've sent to Ethiopia or Somalia because the only thing most of those kids need is 3 squares to thrive.
There are a lot of really sad things going on all around us. Hopefully one day we can take care of them all rather than trying to sort through case by case to pick and choose the worthiest of them.