Analysis of Congenital Defects Participating in PerinatalMortality in the Czech Republic

Overview

Objective:
Analysis of the proportion of selected types of congenital defects in stillbirth, frequentneonatal and perinatal death rate in the Czech Republic in the years 1994-2002.Design: A retrospective demographic-epidemiological analysis.Setting: Institute for the Care of Mother and Child, Prague.Materials and Methods: The study analyzed individual anonymous data from the Institute ofMedical Information and Statistics of the Czech Republic in the period of 1994-2002 (preliminarydata only for 2002) from the National Registry of Congential Defects. Fourteen types of defectswere selected from the data set. The proportion of children with a certain selected congenitaldefect which died during the perinatal period were calculated in comparison with the totalnumber of subjects diagnosed for this congential defect in the Czech Republic over the period ofobservation.Results: A total of 4,436 children died during the perinatal period in the Czech Republic over theperiod of 1994 – 2002, while 879 of them suffered from one or more congenital defects. The congenitaldefects represent more than 10% of stillbirth in this period, 32.5% of deceased individuals in earlyneonatal death rate and almost 20% in perinatal death rate. In 25% of these cases the prenataldiagnosis was positive, whereas prenatal diagnosis was negative or not indicated (a negativescreening) in 48% of cases, and in 27% the data were not fi lled out. More than 45% of childrendeceased with a congenital defect in the perinatal period had two or more congenital defects.Conclusions: Analysis of these results from the registry of congenital defects in the Czech Republiccontributed to the information on prenatal deaths in the period of 1994 – 2002. The proportion of congenital defects in perinatal death rate makes up almost 20%, but it also signifi cantlyparticipates in late newborn and post-newborn mortality and morbidity.

Key words:
congenital defects, perinatal mortality, perinatal diagnostics, anencephaly, spinabifi da,