Nursery World - A Unique Child: Health & Nutrition

New health screening for babies checks for four rare conditions -
which can be treated through dietary management. Public Health England
explains

At the start of 2015, Public Health England announced that all newborn babies in England would be screened for four additional rare conditions: maple syrup urine disease (MSUD), isovaleric acidaemia (IVA), glutaric aciduria type 1 (GA1) and homocystinuria (HCU).

Although these are very rare, affecting about 30 children a year in England (out of about 700,000 born), by detecting and treating these conditions we can prevent those babies affected from dying or being severely disabled for the rest of their lives. Clearly, the benefits of this screening programme are huge.

Parents will already be familiar with the longstanding NHS Newborn Blood Spot Screening Programme that has, for many years, identified those babies at risk of sickle cell disease (SCD), cystic fibrosis (CF), congenital hypothyroidism (CHT), phenylketonuria (PKU) and medium-chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase deficiency (MCADD). The additional conditions will form part of this same screening test, which parents may recognise as the 'heel-prick blood test'.

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