February is Turner Syndrome Awareness Month

February is Turner Syndrome Awareness month and, since this website definitely has an orientation toward the medical field and various issues that pertain to healthcare, this month-long observance deserves an honorable mention and a posting of its own. After all, the point is to raise some much-needed awareness regarding the rare disease process known as Turner Syndrome.

Turner Syndrome is a rather uncommon health problem that afflicts about one in every 2,500 females. This syndrome, which is not inheritable and affects only females, arises due to a chromosomal abnormality. It happens whenever all or part of of a girl’s second X chromosome is either completely or partially absent.

Turner Syndrome develops at the time of conception; in addition, approximately 99 percent of all Turner Syndrome pregnancies do not ever survive. In other words, a female infant who is born with Turner Syndrome has beaten the odds since the vast majority of women who are pregnant with Turner Syndrome babies do not carry them to full term due to fetal demise.

The visual, physical outcome of Turner Syndrome is a notable constellation of telltale signs and symptoms that can vary in severity from mild to profound. Girls with Turner Syndrome tend to present with the following characteristics: an unusually short stature, slower bone growth than usual, horseshoe-shaped kidneys, heart abnormalities, issues with hearing, enlarged hands and feet, and broadened chests and shoulders.

Other physical traits attributable to Turner Syndrome include webbed necks, deformed elbows, narrow palates, thin teeth and puffy extremities. In addition, girls with Turner Syndrome usually have absence of menstruation and suffer from infertility. A large number of females with Turner Syndrome have high blood pressure (hypertension), which is thought to arise due to kidney abnormalities and/or aortic constriction.

Due to the fact that February is Turner Syndrome Awareness Month, the overriding goal of this posting is to spread awareness about this disease process to as many members of the general public as humanly possible while also offering wholehearted support to the many parents of little girls afflicted with this disorder. Approximately 80,000 females have been diagnosed with Turner Syndrome in the United States to date.

Even though there is no known cure for Turner Syndrome at the time of this writing (2019), it is very much manageable when the female patient is placed under the care of a competent healthcare provider who is knowledgeable regarding its ongoing medical management.

REFERENCES

Martell, J. (2018). Raise Awareness of Turner Syndrome During the Month of February! Retrieved from https://patientworthy.com/2018/02/23/raise-awareness-turner-syndrome-month-february/