What is the cause of patau syndrome?

Patau syndrome is the result of unique distribution of chromosomal pair of three in place of two.

Explanation:

A chromosomal disorder resulting in physical and intellectual disabilities of a child is widely known as Trisomy 13 or Patau syndrome. The symptoms include- defect in heart, abnor-mality in brain and spine, poor development of eyes, unusual number of fingers, a cleft lip or cleft palate and hypotonic or weakness in muscle.

The extra pair of chromosome, the pair of three, either in every cell or in few cells of the body is the main cause of this disease.  However, it can also occur if the chromosomes are translocated.

In some rare instances, a single cell in the body has triple copies of chromosome 13 when it's supposed to be only two copies. This results in Trisomy 13 and the Patau syndrome slowly follows. Patau syndrome can also occur when a small section of chromosome 13 gets attached to another chromosome.

Patau syndrome is similar to Edwards's syndrome or Down syndrome. This syndrome affects around 1 in 10,000 live births. Out of those affected, around 90 percent of the infants die in their first year of life. Those who survive are usually disabled severely either mentally or physically.