**10. Illustrative cases**

The cases below illustrate how pregnant women with undiagnosed fetuses with congenital anomaly will labor at home and developed ruptured uterus and present for treatment. All these cases presented with ruptured uterus following various interventions at home.

**10.1 The way forward: collaborative care**

This approach will require pooling of resources [Manpower, Equipment and other resources] to create referral hospitals in different countries and regions to serve as one stop shop able to provide care in all aspect of management of fetal congenital anomalies. Government, the private sector, philanthropists and other non-governmental organization can come together to establish such centers. Examples abound where similar collaboration has provided opportunity for treatment of some medical diseases requiring specialized care. The cardiothoracic center in Accra Ghana is now a regional center for referral that offer treatment for patients from different countries in West Africa as well as provide training for resident doctors from the whole sub-region. The first renal transplant at Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital was sponsored by philanthropist who also invites specialists from Britain and today thank to that effort the hospital is a referral and training center in renal transplant. In the management of congenital fetal anomalies similar approach can be adopted. The collaborative care group that I established at Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital Bauchi while I was there had achieved some success. We educated the community, Counsel parents, managed some pregnancies complicated by congenital anomalies and surgically treated a few cases despite the

*Fetal Congenital Anomalies in Africa: Diagnostic and Management Challenges*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.91994*

challenges we had. This can be replicated in other teaching hospitals.

The prevention of birth defects in Africa should be modified from the traditional

approach that is adopted in other regions of the world. This is because of the

**11. Preventing birth defects: which approach?**

**207**

*Fetal Congenital Anomalies in Africa: Diagnostic and Management Challenges DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.91994*
