RESUMO
OBJECTIVE: Our aim was to establish a multi-center birth defects monitoring system for evaluating the prevalence and serial occurrence of birth defects in Korea. METHODS: Seven centers participated in this monitoring system. Trained nurses actively collected the 42,015 delivery records obtained from delivery units and pediatric clinics in the participating hospitals every month. RESULTS: We observed 722 birth defects among 42,015 births including live births and stillbirths. The prevalence of birth defect was 1.7%. About one thirds of birth defects were terminated. The most frequent congenital anomalies were cleft lip and Down syndrome. The highest proportion of birth defects was 20.1% in urogenital system. The proportion of birth defects in cardiovascular system and gastrointestinal system were 17.1% and 14.1% respectively. Chromosomal anomalies and genetic syndromes represent 13.4% and 3.3% among birth defects respectively. Among chromosomal anomalies Down syndrome was at the first rank. CONCLUSION: We could establish multi-center active monitoring system for birth defects successfully. To check serial occurrence of birth defects, it is necessary to increase participating hospitals and to launch the nationwide multi-center study.
