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Reducing birth defects in populations

Baird, Patricia A.

Centre for Health Services and Policy Research (CHSPR)

Birth defects occur in populations in 3-5% of births. All those birth defects due to chromosomal errors, hundreds of those due to single genes and many of those due to unknown or multifactorial cause can be detected prenatally. However, it is not feasible to test all pregnancies for all of these causes, and it cannot be predicted which pregnant women are more likely to be carrying a fetus with birth defect except in a few instances, namely: -- Down syndrome (1.5 per 1,000 births_ -- Neural tube defect (1.3 per 1,000 births_ -- A previous history in the family of a particular defect -- A history in a sub-population of a high birth incidence of a particular gene-caused defect. Carefully developed programs focused on these four situations may bring benefits to a population, because it allows families to avoid the suffering involved in having a severely handicapped child. it may also be cost effective, since the treatment and ongoing care of such individuals is so expensive, and most couples opt for pregnancy termination.

Text

2014-09-15

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/50375

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/