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Abstract

Cyclopia is a rare and severe form of holoprosencephaly, a condition in which the forebrain fails to divide into two hemispheres during embryonic development. It is poorly reported in sub-Saharan Africa. We report the case of a 21-years-old G2P1001 lady who was referred to our service for better management of preterm labor. She was 29 weeks pregnant, and her cervix was 4 cm dilated on arrival. Labor progressed to vaginal delivery of a preterm malformed baby girl. Physical examination of the neonate revealed; a preterm gasping female baby, weighing 1.26 Kg, Apgar score at birth was 5/10, there was a single midline eye with two distinct irises, a 2 cm long proboscis on the midline of the forehead, and the absence of a nose. The heart sounds were irregularly irregular. The baby died 5 minutes after delivery. We reviewed the sociocultural implications in this resource-limited setting as the father of the baby abandoned the mother of the baby in the hospital as he associated the congenital of abnormality of the baby to witchcraft.