The prevalence at birth of overt congenital anomalies in Urmia, Northwestern Iran.

BACKGROUND Congenital anomalies play a significant role in perinatal and infantile morbidity and mortality. There is a variation in the frequency of congenital anomalies in different populations. Determination of the prevalence of different types of congenital anomalies may help plan primary prevention measures for these anomalies. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence at birth of overt congenital anomalies in Urmia, in the northwest of Iran. METHODS In a cross-sectional hospital-based study, charts of 14,121 deliveries including live-births and stillbirths during the period from January 2001 through June 2005 were studied. RESULTS A total of 264 (187 per 10,000 births) anomalies were detected. The anomaly categories with the highest prevalence were nervous system defects (52.65%) followed by musculoskeletal defects (23.86%). The total prevalence at birth of overt congenital anomalies was 1.87%. The rates for live- and stillbirths were 1.17% and 40.7%, respectively. CONCLUSION Considering the high frequency of central nervous system anomalies recorded in our study, it seems to be reasonable to pay more attention to the role of periconception vitamin supplementation for the primary prevention of congenital anomalies, particularly neural tube defects.