Health Situation in a Full 1980's Nuclear Exchange

I have read the TV Tropes entry about Threads and seeing the situation of the children, how will the health of the people and the descendants fare in the titular scenario?
 
Let's assume no biological weapons used, just conventional and nukes. From nukes, you have increased cancers of all sorts from fallout and lingering contamination. These cancers will be occurring after a number of years - leukemia and thyroid being most prominent. Anyone with the misfortune to have breathed in any plutonium (not all of it gets used up in the blast) will get lung cancer.

In a full on nuclear war for all intents and purposes all modern medical facilities are gone. Once stocks of medicine have been used up everything from aspirin to antibiotics will be gone. Of course anyone dependent upon medications will be screwed - diabetics go first, people with serious cardiac conditions etc go quickly. Malnutrition will be widespread, both general calorie depletion and deficiency diseases. Kwashiokor, rickets, scurvy, beri-beri etc will reappear and malnourished folks have diminished immune response. Children will show the worst effects. Infectious diseases, especially those associated with poor sanitation and unsafe water such as cholera, typhoid, various diarrheal diseases. Poor sanitation no washing you'll see typhus, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever & other tick borne diseases. Bubonic plague has reservoirs (four corners area of American southwest in prairie dogs and other rodents for example) and this will jump back to flea infested humans. Common place infections such as boils or cellulitis will become potentially fatal without antibiotics.

To the extent you have doctors/nurses surviving and some medical texts and enough organization you can ameliorate this with enforcing sanitation, using effective natural remedies or food supplements. Eventually some basic production of medicines could be restarted. Chloroform and ether are easy to produce, and with those and basic clean/aseptic/antiseptic technique some surgery could be done safely - of course infections, shock (no IVs or blood transfusions).

Basically you go back to early 19th century medical care, although knowledge about germ theory, sanitation, surgery, anatomy is out there in pockets. Infectious disease will sweep through a population with weakened immune systems from radiation or malnutrition or both.
 
How about the mutations that may arise from the fallout? I believe that there will be a sufficient amount of healthy people and offspring left, as well as the ones with healthy mental health.
 
The vast majority of mutations for radiation will fall in to one of two categories; those which are irrelevant or at worst are a longer term problem, and those with are fatal to the fetus or soon after birth. The whole mutations bit you see in horror films is pretty inaccurate. For an organism as complex as a human to have a relatively "coordinated" mutation (four arms for example) that doesn't screw up all sorts of important functions is as close to impossible as you care to be. Small ones, like purple (as opposed to blue or brown) eyes are possible but irrelevant.
 
The vast majority of mutations for radiation will fall in to one of two categories; those which are irrelevant or at worst are a longer term problem, and those with are fatal to the fetus or soon after birth. The whole mutations bit you see in horror films is pretty inaccurate. For an organism as complex as a human to have a relatively "coordinated" mutation (four arms for example) that doesn't screw up all sorts of important functions is as close to impossible as you care to be. Small ones, like purple (as opposed to blue or brown) eyes are possible but irrelevant.
Yes, it can't be four arms. However, I am certain that it will excarbate and create a whole lot of genetic disorders (such as a tumorous third arm) that could retard later population growth.
 
In general, as I said, things will likely be minimal or fatal early. Since fetuses with major problems have a high rate of miscarriage, you are more like to see a marked increase in "failed 'pregnancies". You are more likely to see decreased fertility due to radiation in adult men and women.
 
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