Major congenital malformations in barbados: the prevalence, the pattern, and the resulting morbidity and mortality.

Keerti Singh,Anders L Nielsen,Kandamaran Krishnamurthy,Latha Kandamaran,Alok Kumar,Camille Greaves

doi:10.1155/2014/651783

Abstract

Objectives. To study the prevalence and the pattern of major congenital malformations and its contribution to the overall perinatal morbidity and mortality. Methods. It is a retrospective population based study. It includes all major congenital malformations in newborns during 1993-2012. The data was collected from the birth register, the neonatal admission register and the individual patient records at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital where over 90% of deliveries take place and it is the only facility for the care of sick newborns in this country. Results. The overall prevalence of major congenital malformations among the live births was 59/10,000 live births and that among the stillbirths was 399/10,000 stillbirths. Circulatory system was the most commonly affected and accounted for 20% of all the major congenital malformations. Individually, Down syndrome (4.1/10, 000 live births) was the commonest major congenital malformation. There was a significant increase in the overall prevalence during the study period. Major congenital malformations were responsible for 14% of all neonatal death. Conclusions. Less than 1% of all live newborns have major congenital malformations with a preponderance of the malformations of the circulatory system. Major congenital malformations contribute significantly to the overall neonatal morbidity and mortality in this country.

Highlights

Congenital malformation is defined as “a permanent change produced by an intrinsic abnormality of development in a body structure during prenatal life” [1]
Over the twenty year study period (1993–2012), there were a total of 402 major congenital anomalies (376 among the live births + 26 among the stillbirths) recorded in the newborns from among the 64479 births (63827 live births + 652 stillbirths) in Barbados
The overall prevalence of major congenital malformations at birth was 62 per 10,000 births over the study period

Summary

Introduction

Congenital malformation is defined as “a permanent change produced by an intrinsic abnormality of development in a body structure during prenatal life” [1]. Reported prevalence of major congenital malformations in different population around the world has shown considerable variation and ranges from less than 1% to up to 8% [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. Congenital malformations have been reported to be a major cause of mortality and morbidity in children in the developed countries [10,11,12,13,14,15]. Epidemiological data on congenital malformations from long-term populationbased studies originating from the developing countries is scanty [3, 5, 23, 24], and that from the Caribbean region is lacking altogether. The good epidemiological data on the prevalence rate and pattern of birth defects in a specific region gives an opportunity of identifying some etiological factors and can be useful for their prevention in this country and in the region

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion