Preventing birth defects and safeguarding the health of the starting point of life
2024-10-18
Birth defects refer to abnormalities in the body structure, function, or metabolism that occur in infants before birth, and are an important cause of early miscarriage, stillbirth, infant death, and congenital disabilities. There are currently over 8000 known birth defects, including congenital heart disease, limb disabilities, cleft lip and palate, Down syndrome, thalassemia, etc., which the public is relatively familiar with. According to statistics, the total incidence of birth defects in China is about 5.6%, which is close to the level of middle-income countries in the world. However, due to the large population base, there are still hundreds of thousands of new cases of birth defects every year. Having a healthy child is the expectation of every family. Birth defects bring heavy economic burden and mental pressure to families and society, and have become a major public health problem that affects the quality of our population and the level of group health. The key to intervention for birth defects is prevention. In recent years, the country has vigorously promoted comprehensive prevention and control of birth defects, achieving a shift from "passive defense" to "active prevention". We will comprehensively promote health education, premarital medical examinations, pre pregnancy examinations, and folic acid supplementation services. The national pre marriage examination rate and pre pregnancy examination rate have reached 76.5% and 96.9%, respectively. At the same time, we will provide preventive services such as prenatal screening and diagnosis, release quality control indicators for prenatal screening and diagnosis, strengthen service implementation and quality management, reduce major birth defects that cause death and serious disability, and achieve a national prenatal screening rate of 91.3%. For newborns, strengthen disease screening, diagnosis, and treatment interventions to prevent and reduce congenital disabilities. According to data from the National Health Commission, through unremitting efforts, significant progress and achievements have been made in the prevention and control of birth defects in China. Compared with five years ago, the infant mortality rate and under five mortality rate caused by birth defects have both decreased by more than 30%, and the incidence of serious disability birth defects such as neural tube defects and Down syndrome has decreased by 23%. Some intervention and assistance projects for children with birth defects are also actively promoted, such as the Central Special Lottery Public Welfare Fund's special support for birth defect intervention and assistance; Many provinces have expanded the coverage of functional birth defect assistance to a wider range of people. It can be said that China has developed a comprehensive prevention and control strategy for birth defects with Chinese characteristics. It should also be noted that preventing birth defects faces new situations and difficulties. For example, it is well known that the optimal age for women to have children is 25 (± 3) years old. However, in recent years, due to social factors such as work pressure, the average age of childbirth in large and medium-sized cities has been postponed to around 30 years old, and the proportion of pregnant women over 35 years old has increased, leading to a significant increase in the risk of birth defects. At the same time, the progress of preventing birth defects among the floating population is slow, and the incidence of birth defects in some areas is on the rise. These problems also urgently need to be solved. In order to adapt to the new situation, the National Health Commission issued the "Plan for Enhancing the Ability to Prevent and Control Birth Defects (2023-2027)" last year, which requires more universal and accessible birth defect prevention and control services, further improves the coverage of tertiary prevention measures, and proposes specific data indicators for various work, providing direction and guidance for further reducing the incidence of birth defects. Our country has a vast territory and diverse situations in different regions. Only by adapting to local conditions can we improve our abilities in a targeted manner and lay a solid foundation for more families to have healthy babies. At present, all parties are taking proactive measures and making efforts to reduce the incidence of birth defects. For example, recently, Jiangsu has included non-invasive prenatal genetic testing services in the tenth round of consumables volume based procurement, which will effectively reduce the price of high-throughput gene sequencing testing services for prenatal trisomy syndrome (chromosomes 21, 18, 13) and achieve wider screening coverage. Preventing birth defects and safeguarding the health of the starting point of life are the first hurdle for high-quality population development. Strengthen knowledge dissemination and health education, and improve the awareness of prevention and treatment knowledge among the childbearing age population; By strengthening the construction of service institutions, solving the problem of insufficient and unbalanced service resources, and optimizing prevention and control services, we can further reduce the incidence of birth defects. (New Society)
Edit：Chen Jie Responsible editor：Li Ling
Source：People's Daily
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