Trisomy 13

Trisomy 13 is also known as Patau syndrome and occurs when the child receives duplicated information from chromosome #13. This disorder affects approximately 1 in every 10,000 babies.

Common symptoms of the disorder include cleft palate/cleft lip, close set or fused eyes (becoming a cyclops), low muscle tone, polydactyly, hernia, coloboma, severe mental retardation, undescended testicles in the male, small eyes and head, seizures, missing skin, skeletal malformations and low set ears.

Babies will generally have feeding complications, breathing abnormalities, heart complications and will be deaf. Because of the severe malformations of the disorder, most affected babies are either stillborn or die within the first few months of life.