PHILADELPHIA — The babies are born with small heads, underdeveloped jawbones, conjoined toes and rounded, “rocker-bottom” feet.
Physicians at Nemours Children’s Health say they all have one thing in common: They were exposed in utero to significant amounts of fentanyl, a dangerous synthetic opioid.
In a new study, the authors say they’ve identified 10 such babies so far, describing their constellation of symptoms as a “novel syndrome associated with prenatal fentanyl exposure.”
Six of the children were identified at Nemours clinics in Delaware. Four others were identified by physicians in California, Boston and Rhode Island who are coauthors of the study, published this fall in Genetics in Medicine Open.
While illicit fentanyl use has been on the rise for years, no one had previously established a link between the drug and these birth defects. That’s likely because children born to parents who use the drug may not receive regular medical care, or their pediatricians may not know the parents’ medical history, said senior study author Karen W. Gripp, chief of the Nemours division of medical genetics.
As a result, such children may have been misdiagnosed as having a genetic condition with some of the same symptoms, called Smith Lemli Opitz syndrome. She said that’s what happened at first with several of the Nemours children. After additional testing, none turned out to have genetic mutations that could explain the unusual symptoms, which also can include genital anomalies and cleft palate.
Further study is needed to prove definitively that fentanyl causes this collection of symptoms, but the evidence from these 10 babies is compelling, Gripp said.
“We have enough information to feel confident to say yes, there is something here,” she said.
McMaster University clinical geneticist Margaret J.M. Nowaczyk, who was not involved with the research and reviewed it at The…
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