Dead Children Research Articles

Embryotomy for head last retention: A case report from Thiès, Senegal

Introduction: Hydrocephalus is a pathology of heterogeneous nature and complex pathogenesis. It corresponds to an active distension of the ventricular system. Faced with hydrocephalus with retained head in a dead child, embryotomy by craniotomy is indicated. Case Report: We report a case of intrapartum fetal death with head-last retention due to hydrocephalus treated with craniotomy performed at the regional hospital of Thiès (CHRT). This was a 21-year-old primigravida patient seen for premature delivery in a pregnancy of 33 weeks 5 days. The ultrasound concluded that the pregnancy had stopped at 33 weeks 5 days with major hydrocephalus. A craniotomy followed by gradual evacuation of the cerebrospinal fluid allowed easy delivery of a fresh stillborn weighing 1950 grams. The afterbirth was simple. Conclusion: Embryotomy by craniotomy constitutes a good option to complete delivery by natural means in the face of head retention due to hydrocephalus with intrapartum death. It is therefore necessary to master this simple and less morbid technique than a cesarean section in such a situation.

Numbers

Prior to October 2023, I knew embarassingly little about the ongoing occupation of Palestine, and it wasn't until I reconnected with a childhood friend that I started to really pay attention to what had been happening following the October 7th attack. I knew of Israel's military capacity and the seemingly limitless support by the United States, but it wasn't until I began to follow grassroot media and civilians in Gaza that I understood the true extent of the conflict. Each day since, I've been struggling to comprehend why the my community and my country as a whole seems to remain largely unaffected. I've struggled with understanding why I can scroll through videos of homes reduced to rubble, testaments to history ---libraries, mosques, etc.--- reduced to ash, and dead children, only to find clips of Taylor Swift and Travic Kelce or edits of the new Hunger Games movie sprinkled in between. The kind of nonchalence and willful ignorance I've seen from strangers and loved ones has been such a surreal thing to experience. I've been writing a lot of poetry to cope with it, and this was one of those poems.

THE CLAY AND MINING CRAFTS OF THE SAO PEOPLE ON THE BORDER OF LAKE CHAD BASIN

The Sao people are distinguished from other populations by their practice of artisanal and mineral manufacturing in the regions where their population lived and populated. There are several kinds of objects made from clay for cooking food, as well as cups used for drinking water, decorated and embellished with different colors including white and black for the ornament of baskets. The Sao also used clay to make jars used to bury their dead. Should we remember that the dead of the Sao are buried in jars made especially for the occasion. This funeral jar is not smooth and without ornament. They place the dead in a tied position, facing east where the sun rises, according to their belief in the strength of the sun. This way of believing and the procedure of burial constitute a common denominator between the Pharaohs of Egypt and the peoples of Maroui, specifically from the point of view of the worship of the sun that ancient African peoples practiced from the Nile to Senegal. The Sao also made statuettes and produced human and animal representations, and games for children. These statuettes and representations symbolize the spiritual sides of the Sao people, and this is the reason why these small human statuettes are placed next to the sick to cure the disease, believing that they chase away the evil spirits which harm and torture the sick, unable to defend themselves. Sometimes the statuettes are placed in the tomb with the dead and the objects used to drink water and eat food that the deceased used during his lifetime. This reflects the influence of the Nilo-and Pharaonic civilization. Objects made from clay are used in various artisanal transformations of things never imagined, such as the coffin of the dead, pots, baskets, cups, bowls and various children's

Clinical and imaging analysis of neurological complications in critically ill children infected with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron

To summarize clinical predictors and imaging characteristics of critically ill children infected with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron with neurological complications in Shenzhen during the peak of the first round of infections. The clinical data of 11 critically ill children with neurological complications infected with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron in Shenzhen Children's Hospital from December 12 to 31, 2022, were retrospectively collected and analyzed. Laboratory test results related to liver parenchymal injury, histiocytic injury, inflammation, and coagulation function were collected, and imaging characteristics including CT and/or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) were analyzed. The differences in CT/MRI score, acute necrotizing encephalopathy severity scale (ANE-SS) score and total score (CT/MRI score + ANE-SS score) were compared between the two groups with different prognosis during hospitation. Among 11 children, 7 were male and 4 were female. The age ranged from 10 months to 16 years. There were 5 cases of acute necrotizing encephalopathy (ANE) and 6 cases of acute fulminant cerebral edema (AFCE). During hospitalization, 3 patients survived and 8 patients died of multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS), including 2 cases of ANE and 6 cases of AFCE. All cases had fever (> 38.5 centigrade), and 3 cases had ultra-high fever (> 41 centigrade). Within 48 hours of onset, all cases had disorders of consciousness and 9 cases had seizures. The 8 dead children had complications with multisystem involvement, including shock, respiratory failure, disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC), liver failure, renal failure or myocardial damage, and the laboratory predictors related to hepatocellular injury [alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST)], histocyte injury [creatine kinase (CK), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH)], inflammation [procalcitonin (PCT), interleukin-6 (IL-6), serum ferritin (SF)], coagulation function (D-dimer) and blood glucose (Glu) increased in different quantities, of which PCT was specifically increased in 6 cases with AFCE, PLT was specifically decreased in 3 cases with AFCE, and ALT and LDH were significantly increased in 2 cases with ANE. Imaging analysis showed subarachnoid hemorrhage, basal ganglia and thalamus lesions in all 6 cases with AFCE, while thalamus lesions in all 5 cases with ANE. The ANE-SS score of 8 deceased children ranged from 2 to 7 (of which 6 cases were ≥ 5), and the ANE-SS score of 3 surviving children ranged from 0 to 2. Eight dead children had a CT/MRI score of 1-4 (of which 6 cases were 4), and 3 surviving children had a CT/MRI score of 1-2 (of which 2 cases were 1). The total score of 8 deceased children was 6-10 (of which 6 cases ≥ 8), and 3 surviving children was 1-4. The neurological complications of critically ill children infected with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron in Shenzhen progressed rapidly to ANE and AFCE, with high mortality. High fever (> 40 centigrade), convulsion/disturbance of consciousness, and multiple organ failure were the most common symptoms in ANE and AFCE cases. PCT increased and PLT decreased specifically in AFCE cases. Poor prognosis (death) was more common in age < 4 years old, predictors of ALT, AST, CK, LDH, PCT, D-dimer, Glu, IL-6 increased significantly, PLT decreased significantly. The common imaging feature of ANE and AFCE is the involvement of dorsal thalamus, a new imaging sign of AFCE (subarachnoid hemorrhage) was found. The higher the ANE-SS score, CT/MRI score and total score, the greater the risk of death.

Continuing bonds of bereaved Muslims mothers with their young dead child

Based on continuing bonds theory, this research examined the experience and manifestations of continuing bonds of bereaved Muslim mothers with their children who died in home accidents. This qualitative phenomenological study is based on interviews with 15 bereaved mothers (aged 28–46 years) whose children (aged 1–6 years) died 2–7 years before the interviews. Analysis revealed three themes: efforts to continue the physical bonds, challenges in the continuing bonds in cases of traumatic death, and belief in afterlife as the main element of the continuing bonds. The traumatic circumstances of the death challenged the ability to maintain the bond based on positive memories without it being overwhelmed by the traumatic memories of the last moments of the child’s life. Religious beliefs played an important role in the characteristics of the bond. Maintaining the bond requires professionals to provide a therapeutic environment where bereaved mothers feel safe talking about it.

Magic and Spells in &lt;em&gt;Buffy the Vampire Slayer&lt;/em&gt; (1997-2003)

Magic and Spells in &lt;em&gt;Buffy the Vampire Slayer&lt;/em&gt; (1997-2003)

1931–1933 жылдардағы қазақ балаларының ашығуы

The situation of children affected by famine in Qazaqstan in 1931-1933, who lost their parents, became increasingly difficult. Orphaned, homeless children seeking food and shelter would move to other regions. Along the way, the bones of dead children remained unburied and became prey for dogs and birds. The death toll from infectious diseases was also incalculable. In the early days of the famine, the Government seemed to ignore the deaths of starving and devastated children, and the fate of orphaned children, and didn’t take needed measures. Instead, they tried to hide this situation. The cases when children ended up in orphanages were especially difficult. Every day the number of the dead increased, and on winter days, when the relatives were unable to bury them, their bodies lay in the barn until spring. The number of dying children on the city streets and village roads was incalculable. Based on archival documents and eyewitness memoirs, the article examines the fate of Qazaq children who became victims of famine in the 1930s, and clarifies the measures taken by the Government to accommodate the starving and homeless children in orphanages, communes, and factory training schools. The work of the children's commission established by the Government and its results are analyzed. The process of return of refugee children to their native places is also described in the article.

Threads of memory: Reviving the ornament of a dead child at the Neolithic village of Ba`ja (Jordan).

In 2018, a well-constructed cist-type grave was discovered at Ba`ja, a Neolithic village (7,400-6,800 BCE) in Southern Jordan. Underneath multiple grave layers, an 8-year-old child was buried in a fetal position. Over 2,500 beads were found on the chest and neck, along with a double perforated stone pendant and a delicately engraved mother-of-pearl ring discovered among the concentration of beads. The first was found behind the neck, and the second on the chest. The meticulous documentation of the bead distribution indicated that the assemblage was a composite ornament that had gradually collapsed, partly due to the burying position. Our aim was to challenge time degradation and to reimagine the initial composition in order to best explore the significance of this symbolic category of material culture, not as mere group of beads, but as an ornamental creation with further aesthetic, artisanal and socioeconomic implications. The reconstruction results exceeded our expectations as it revealed an imposing multi-row necklace of complex structure and attractive design. Through multiple lines of evidence, we suggest that the necklace was created at Ba`ja, although significant parts of beads were made from exotic shells and stones, including fossil amber, an unprecedented material never attested before for this period. The retrieval of such an ornament from life and its attribution to a young dead child highlights the significant social status of this individual. Beyond the symbolic functions related to identity, the necklace is believed to have played a key role in performing the inhumation rituals, understood as a public event gathering families, relatives, and people from other villages. In this sense, the necklace is not seen as belonging completely to the realm of death but rather to the world of the living, materializing a collective memory and shared moments of emotions and social cohesion.

Maternal death in the visual arts: immersion into emotional world through the great artists' paintings

The article presents paintings by famous artists on "maternal death": Edvard Munch "The Dead Mother and Child", Pablo Picasso "Motherhood", Egon Schiele "Pregnant Woman and Death" and "The Dying Mother", Frida Kahlo "My Birth", Gustav Klimt "Death and Life" as well as their description.

Wizerunki dzieci w poezji funeralnej Wacława Potockiego

This article presents Baroque funeral poetry devoted to the dead children. Wacław Potocki was the author of many funeral works – songs, threnody, epitaphs – referring to Greek-Roman tradition and epicedium (laudatio, lamentatio, consolatio). After the death of his three children: Stefan, Zofia, and Jerzy he created Periody and Smutne zabawy, expressing sorrow and looking for purpose of human existence. He focused on the idea of dignitas humana and the themes of Christian eschatology. His meditative and religious poems devoted to the dead children are a result of confrontation with emptiness and emotional pain.

Italian Polizieschi of the Anni di Piombo and the Filmic Aesthetics of Random Violence: Children, Community, and Catharsis

ABSTRACT This article studies the cultural function of the representation of violence in Italian polizieschi of the 1970s within the historical context of the anni di piombo. Focusing especially on the representation of victims in the filone, the article claims that polizieschi presented for the first time a particular aesthetics of victimhood that I call ‘aesthetics of random violence'. I retrace the experiential core of this aesthetics in the filone’s recurring representation of imperilled, wounded, or dead children. The pervasive presence of this representation has so far remained practically unregistered in Italian studies scholarship. I therefore propose a novel periodisation of the filone based on the evolution of the aesthetics here described. Finally, I argue that through this aesthetics polizieschi allowed viewers a communal catharsis that reinforced the bonds between them as a united social body against the violence produced by terrorism and organized crime.

When Words Fail: “Miscarriage,” Referential Ambiguity, and Psychological Harm

Despite significant efforts to support those bereaved by intrauterine death, they remain susceptible to avoidable psychological harm such as disenfranchised grief, misplaced guilt, and emotional shock. This is in part because the words available to describe intrauterine death-"miscarriage," "spontaneous abortion," and "pregnancy loss"-are referentially ambiguous. Despite appearing to refer to one event, they can refer to two distinct events: the baby's death and his preterm delivery. Disenfranchised grief increases when people understand "miscarriage" as the physical process of preterm delivery alone, for this obscures the baby's death and excludes non-gestational parents, such as the father. Additionally, focusing on the delivery reinforces the mistaken idea that a gestational mother bears responsibility for her baby's death, increasing misplaced guilt. When these terms instead shift the focus to the baby's intrauterine death rather than the preterm delivery, they can obscure the physically difficult and often traumatic experience women have when they deliver their dead children, leaving women shocked by preterm delivery's physical reality. Given their outsized role in framing the bereaved's experiences, and their duty to avoid harming their patients, healthcare practitioners in particular should take special care to discuss intrauterine death and preterm delivery appropriately with patients and their families. Changing language to describe intrauterine death and preterm delivery clearly and precisely helps mitigate disenfranchised grief, misplaced guilt, and shock, while also helping to reframe the social response to intrauterine death, making it more obvious why certain steps, such as allowing bereavement leave following an intrauterine death, promote healing.

Developing parenthood through giving birth to a dead child – bereaved lesbian mothers’ maternity care experiences in Scandinavia

This phenomenological study uses in-depth interviews to explore how six lesbian couples experience the loss of a child in the perinatal period. Our findings revealed the importance of developing queer parenthood through a meaningful birthing space facilitated by a midwife and enabling time and space to recognize love and beauty in the couple’s grief. Suboptimal maternity care or insensitive comments related to their lesbian status complicated the loss, while care providers’ acknowledgement and sensitivity to the specific needs of queer couples enabled them to be present in the moment and recognize and process their loss.

Wiersz "Ach! cóż nieszczęśliwy znaczę na tym świecie" Erazma Słowackiego – próba kulturowo-teodycealnej interpretacji

The article combines two elements in the interpretation of Erasmus Słowacki’s poem “Ah! What Poor Me in this World”: the cultural and the theodicean. Granted, not all major theodicean concepts are included in the poem by the poet himself, and neither can they be applied to it in the act of interpretation. Theologically speaking, however, it is possible to see in the poem a theodicean concept of divine recompense for the evil suffered (an example is the recompense given to Job after the trial he was subjected to). The possibility of seeing compensation stems from the observation that his tragedy (the loss of his ten children) was too great for the poet to still be able to write literarily complex works of a public nature about it (and the poem in question is such a work). The fact that he writes about it, and in this way, proves that a specific mental and emotional healing process has started in him, which can perhaps be seen as a manifestation of the beginning of the process of restitution. Part of it is a reconsideration of one’s future, an increased sense of power, an attempt to contact dead children (which could prove the poet’s opening to a theistically oriented process of experiencing miracles), a belief in the existence of non-material reality (and thus, indirectly, a recognition of the possibility of meeting dead children after death).

Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt and the Double Time of Motherhood

Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt and the Double Time of Motherhood

Visuality and Parrēsia: Ai Weiwei’s countervisual re-enactment of Alan Kurdi’s image

As an intervention in the study of visuality and countervisuality (Mirzoeff 2011), underscoring its connection to democracy and parrēsia (Foucault 2010), this article examines Ai Weiwei’s re-enactment of Alan Kurdi’s image in 2016. The instant and expandable polemics that characterized the reception of the re-enactment built on the unethicalness – even blatant inappropriateness – of a celebrity’s appropriation of (the graphic representation of) a dead child’s body. Building on the role of the Chinese celebrity artist-activist as a public intellectual, this article advances a way to rethink the re-enactment beyond the idea of shock and away from controversy, analyzing it as an indictment of two interrelated ‘crises’: the European refugee ‘crisis’ and the inadequate response to the influx of refugees in 2015, and the ‘crisis’ of democracy more broadly, considering that respect for human rights is integral to democratic governance. To make a case for the re-enactment as a form of countervisuality, I deploy Barthes’s theorization on the punctum and studium of photographs. The contention is that Ai’s re-enactment of Nilüfer Demir’s photo – and the controversy surrounding it – actualizes the punctum and studium of the precursor image to function as a denunciation of the ‘crises’ of our present moment.

Mothers' bereavement and evolving relationships with their dead child in South Korea

AbstractObjectiveThis study examined mothers' continuing relationships with their child lost to cancer in South Korea.BackgroundParents who lose a child to cancer experience a deep level of grief and a continuous, seemingly never‐ending grieving process.MethodFifteen semistructured interviews were conducted with mothers who had lost a child to cancer. Participants were recruited from a support group for bereaved parents. Most participants were currently unemployed, and the elapsed time since the child's death ranged from 8 months to 13 years. Inductive thematic analysis was conducted to identify themes.ResultsWe identified three overlapping themes––regret, longing, and connectedness––and eight subthemes. One major source of regret was focusing too much on pursuing a curative treatment to prevent their child's death and forgetting to show their love toward their dying child. Mothers identified longing for their child as an inexplicably intense and ever‐present loss that will only end with their death, when they will be reunited with their child. Mothers continued to live and communicate with their deceased child, imagining how their child would have grown up if they were still alive.ConclusionMothers who lost a child to cancer used continuing bonds to maintain their parental identity and relationship with the child. Maintaining bonds with deceased children can take various forms and affect coping in the parents' bereavement process.ImplicationsHealth professionals should support continuing bonds that may help parents construct meaning while simultaneously promoting improved adaptation to the death of a child to cancer in the grieving process.

Clinical Analysis of Children with High-Risk Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia

To explore the treatment of children with high-risk acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL), aiming to improve the prognosis. The clinical datas of 24 children with high-risk APL in our hospital from January 2015 to June 2021 were retrospectively analyzed. The main manifestations of 24 children (including 15 males and 9 females) were purpura, gingiva bleeding and nasal hemorrhage, with a median age of 7 years old and a median leukocyte count of 28.98 (10-232)×109/L, including 15 cases with leukocyte count between 10×109/L and 50×109/L, 2 cases between 50×109/L and 100×109/L, and 7 cases >100×109/L. The leukocyte count of 2 cases in 3 children admitted from 2015 to November 2016 was >100×109/L, in which 1 case was first treated with homoharringtonine for cytoreduction, 7 days later treated with all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) after genetic diagnosis, then died of differentiation syndrome and pulmonary hemorrhage after 3 days. The other one was treated with reduced ATRA+daunorubicin+arsenic trioxide (ATO) for induction, then achieved complete remission. The third one with leukocyte count 12×109/L had cerebral hemorrhage before admission and died on the 7th day of treatment. The remaining 21 children were treated with chemotherapy according to the APL regimen for children in South China, including 14 cases with leukocyte count between 10×109/L and 50×109/L, 2 cases between 50×109/L and 100×109/L, and 5 cases >100×109/L. In the 5 children with leukocyte count >100×109/L, 1 case died of cerebral hemorrhage on the second day of oral ATRA before the addition of anthracyclines, 3 cases died of cerebral hemorrhage after the addition of anthracyclines to chemotherapy on the second day of oral ATRA, and another one developed differentiation syndrome after the addition of mitoxantrone on the second day of oral ATRA, then achieved complete remission after ATRA reduction chemotherapy and survived without disease till now. In the 2 children with leukocyte count between 50×109/L and 100×109/L, 1 case died of cerebral hemorrhage on the second day of oral ATRA before the addition of anthracyclines. All the children were followed up until 1st August, 2021, with a median follow-up time of 40 months, including 7 deaths and 1 recurrence in maintenance therapy who achieved second remission after chemotherapy, 14 cases survived in 3 years and 13 cases survived without event. The 7 dead children had a median time from treatment to death of 5 days, including 1 case with leukocyte count between 10×109/L and 50×109/L, 1 case between 50×109/L and 100×109/L, and 5 cases >100×109/L. High-risk APL children with leukocyte count >100×109/L have a high mortality rate. Gradual addition of chemotherapy starting at small doses and early addition of ATO may help to improve the prognosis.

Gothic visibilities and International Relations: Uncanny icons, critical comics, and the politics of abjection in Aleppo

AbstractThe war in Syria has been communicated to global audiences through images of dead and injured children, decapitated and tortured bodies, and ruined cities. The article shows how news media coverage of the war's impact on the city of Aleppo invoked a Gothic tradition. Drawing on Kristeva and Freud's concepts of the abject and the uncanny, the article argues that the Gothic tradition can further International Relations research on the constitution of Selves and Others. The Gothic Other is constituted through the (Gothic) Self's repulsion, fascination, and desire, and the Gothic tradition revolves around an understanding of the invisible as an in-between space of fear and anticipation. The ability to recognise Gothic themes in an image depends on one's familiarity with the Gothic tradition, hence images are theorised as having a Gothic potentiality. The article focuses on how the Anglo-Saxon Gothic tradition enabled Western readers to identify Gothic themes in news coverage of the war in Aleppo. The article adopts a multimethod strategy including a content analysis of 457 images published by Western news media; a discourse analysis of news stories; an analysis of three Gothic, uncanny iconic motifs; and an author-created comic drawing on Gothic elements from the published photographs.

Excerpt from The Committed

Excerpt from <i>The Committed</i>