Study: Birth Defects Decrease Survival, Childbirth, Boost Risk Of Simil...( re a third less likely to give birth by...),Health

"This increased risk was confined entirely to the specific defect carried by the mother, with the relative risk of recurrence varying from 5.5 to 82 (times) according to the defect," the authors wrote. "In contrast, there was no increase in the risk of having an infant with a different type of defect."

Deaths among those with birth defects were 15 times as high in the first year of life and 12 times as high in the second year as among the others, they said. The relative risk decreased with age but was still more than four times higher among children ages 10 to 14.

"Although the subjects with birth defects had a risk of bearing children with birth defects that was 1.6 times the risk among those without birth defects, these subjects constituted only about 1 percent of the women who gave birth, the scientists said. "Thus, the higher risk among the subjects with birth defects accounted for only 5 of 1,000 birth defects in the next generation, according to an estimate."

Twenty-six women with birth defects had infants with the same defects as compared with an expected number of just under four, they found. Maternal defects that recurred in the children were cleft palate, cleft lip, clubfoot and malformed limbs.

"Among the children of the mothers with these birth defects as compared with the children of the mothers with no defects, the relative risks were as follows: cleft palate, 82; cleft lip, 38; clubfoot, 5.5; and limb defects, 5.6," the authors wrote.

The Norwegian Research Council supported the new study.

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Contact: David Williamson
David_Williamson@unc.edu
919-962-8596
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
8-Apr-1999