My guinea pig was pregnant and gave birth: every baby later died.

[ItsJustBadLuck]

My family has unfortunately fallen victim to an unidentified, and likely novel, neurological disorder that presents with no obvious symptoms until their sudden death. I will use some jargon, so if you just want the story, I have it marked out in bold. If you're a vet, please remember the symptoms I wrote out so that if you see this happening again, you can inform the owners that it's likely that every baby will die the same way. I really don't think we are anywhere close to the point that we can treat this disease, but we can at least know it exists and that it's most likely genetic.
I am trained to notice and differentiate seizures as my sister has a rare form of epilepsy, and so I will be very descriptive about the symptoms.
Tags for people googling: seizure in baby guinea pigs, baby guinea pig shaking, dead baby guinea pigs, seizure disorders in guinea pigs, fatal seizures in baby guinea pigs.

==Medical talk & Symptoms:

Whilst similar to lethal whites in some notable ways, it lacks almost all symptoms until their sudden (and guaranteed) death. It appears to follow a co-dominant inheritance pattern wherein homozygous cavies are unaffected "carriers" and heterozygous cavies are affected. Lets call these alleles 1 and 2. If a cavy has the phenotype 1-2 or 2-1, the cavy will certainly die. If the cavy has the phenotype 1-1 or 2-2, the cavy will be healthy with no signs of disorder. This is the most plausible explanation, but the sample size is too small to rule out cross dominance that involves recessive alleles and other forms of inheritance BESIDES: x-linked recessive, recessive (and maybe more, but this is all I feel confident ruling out).

Symptoms: They stop eating, and this means that within the next 70 minutes, there is a 100% chance that they will be dead. The seizures are tonic-clonic (grand mal) in nature, and they are an agonic sign. The cavy will be mostly normal besides this subtle change in behavior, but will then suddenly fall to its side and begin seizing in episodes of roughly 20 seconds to 2 minutes with superficial similarity to severe infantile spasms in humans at a much greater case fatality rate. I do not believe the cavy is in pain during this moment, but the seizures can be highly discomforting for those watching, however the cavy is likely unconscious during the majority of this period.
During intermediate periods, the cavy will display a normal respiratory rate and the ability to blink and plausible-but definitely altered-consciousness. These episodes will last for about 30-40 minutes. As the episode continues, the respiratory rate of the cavy will reduce to about 60 per minute before slowing down to roughly 40 before the cavy appears to be in a state of deep rest. The cavy slows down, and its actual death ends peacefully in comparison to the chaotic events beforehand (but I can't say it always will).
The seizures present as contortions of every part of the body, paddling of the limbs (sometimes extremely rapidly), but sometimes it will also only paddle with its front limbs and tilt its head far back. In one instance I observed an extremely rapid seizure, but it then had this much calmer paddling of the front limbs, and I knew the cavy was very close to death and was in an extremely disordered neurological state.
The prodromal period is highly recognizable (if this disorder is already known in the litter) and has an acute onset.

There are no obvious warning signs besides all that I have described. Trust me, we looked relentlessly for anything that could give us the slightest clue.
The seizures are very severe.
There is no treatment for this disease and its prognosis is invariably fatal.

--What happened?
One day, my family went to adopt a guinea pig from a pet store. We had a choice between two guinea pigs: a male, and a pregnant female. We picked the male as we did not want to have the responsibility of taking care of a pregnant guinea pig, and we had little backup plans for where the babies would go next.
Well, the pet store was wrong. Not only was the male not a male, but it was also a pregnant female. We did not know this until she was giving birth, which is a horrible time to find out a guinea pig is pregnant as we should all know. However, we helped her deliver four (4) babies successfully, and nothing went wrong. The mother recovered perfectly and is still alive and healthy, but she deeply misses her babies. She certainly carries one part of a fatal gene combination that the father completed sorta like how you cannot breed two roans together.

Early Warnings
During the pregnancy, one baby had an especially hard time getting out of the womb, The mother was not exhausted, and tried to drag the baby out using the floor of her container, but this floor was soft and could not effectively do it so we carefully helped deliver the baby.
This baby had a neurological presentation of weak hind limbs that presented similar to that of paralysis in dogs. However, by the next day the baby had fully recovered and was even able to stand on its hind legs. This baby later seemed to be a runt, but was not mistreated by others.
The next baby was delivered without assistance, and was fine but also had weaker hind limbs like that of the other baby but much milder as it stopped having any issues within the hour. I was not highly concerned with this, but my parents raised concern that this could indicate that there was a weak stock and that we should anticipate at least one of the babies dying. As two of them had been born presenting with these legs, my brain took a mental note that either it's typical to see this, or that it's a sign that there is something wrong. The other two (same two with the unique coat) were born very healthy and were immediately exploring their surroundings whilst staying near their mother.

Taking care of the babies
We had no issues with taking care of the babies. They were well fed and were very healthy. They showed normal vocalizations, which were adorable, and they talked plentifully with one another. It was common in my household to hear all of them excitedly squeaking together and playing with one another. They were utterly typical.

Deaths
The first one to die, which was the first one who had hind leg problems, stopped eating for approximately one hour. My sister, who was taking care of them, noticed this and concerned herself with whether the baby was sick. These fears were confirmed when the baby suddenly dropped to the floor and demonstrated paddling motions. A little over 30 minutes later, the cavy was dead.

The second one to die, which had milder leg problems, happened the next day. It stopped eating for almost an hour, and my sister noticed this and was alarmed but we could not confirm if it was happening again or not. The cavy dropped to the floor, her suspicions were confirmed, and the cavy was dead within 30 minutes. The guinea pigs were allowed to say goodbye again, and we buried the two babies together. The mother found herself anxious, and we found ourselves saddened.

The third one to die died over a week later (it was female, disproving sex-linked inheritance which means it's not to do solely with the mother). It stopped eating for about 15 minutes, then dropped, had a very large number of seizures of varying severity, and died within 40 minutes. These seizures showed multiple presentations as a highly noteworthy absence seizure happened at one point. I prayed that night that the gray one would be unaffected. I'm not religious, but I prayed.

The final one died today, one day after the previous one. Same presentation as the previous ones, but had only 15 minutes of forewarning. The seizures weren't as severe as the last one, but upon seeing that it was seizing, we knew it was going to die. There was nothing we could do besides comfort it as he went out. The symptoms were not any different from the ones described prior.
Not the particularly emotional type, but I cried that morning and offered to donate the body to a nearby biological research campus due to its illusive nature, but as it had died on Christmas, we realized nobody would pick up the phone.
This final death drove me to posting this here as I believe there is no animal that deserves the fate I just witnessed, and if I can't find some meaning out of this situation, would you blame me if I went mad?

[Lynx]

I am so sorry for the loss of your unexpected babies.

You sound intelligent and knowledgeable. I do not have a medical background but have monitored these forums for a long time. My comments are general and point to the possibility of other causes of death.

If I recall correctly, death is often associated with spasm or seizures. Unsure of the association with a genetic issue.

We routinely advise pet owners to have a necropsy done to determine cause of death. A vet will often make a guess as to the cause and then take samples of various organs, etc. to have further tests done to aid in determining the actual cause of death.

I am guessing poisoning, for example, might also cause seizures.

Future readers, if they wanted to consider a genetic cause, might wish to have a necropsy done that would provide genetic info.

[Sef]

Ditto Lynx. I have no medical background and zero experience with guinea pig pregnancies myself, so all I can really offer are my condolences. Pet stores are notoriously unreliable when it comes to sexing guinea pigs, and there is generally a lot of inbreeding in those animals that can lead to a host of genetic issues.

Thank you for sharing your experience. I hope that your surviving female continues to do well.

[Lynx]

Yes, and thank you from me for sharing your experience also.

p.s. did you weigh the pups daily? Further on down this page, you will find links to weight charts of pups.
https://www.guinealynx.info/weigh.html

[Rose Junior]

I'm really sorry to hear that. It must have been heartbreaking to lose the babies after such an emotional experience with your guinea pig's pregnancy. I can imagine the excitement you must have felt waiting for the little ones, only for things to take such a sad turn. In times like this, it's comforting to think about the beautiful moments animals bring into our lives there are so many animals that you love https:// .com/animales/. I hope your guinea pig is doing okay.