An ecological study on orofacial clefts in northeastern Brazil

Abstract

The objective of this paper was to evaluate the prevalence of live births with orofacial clefts in Northeastern Brazil, with regard to Brazil's federative units. An ecological, descriptive study was developed based on the data recorded in the Brazilian Information System on Live Births (SINASC), between 2011 and 2016 in nine Brazilian capitals

Epidemiologic profile and prevalence of live births with orofacial cleft in Brazil: a descriptive study

“…Regarding biological variables, the findings of this study agree with previous ones that also found a higher occurrence of CLP than CP in Brazilian. 18 – 20 Also, non-syndromic OC was more frequent in males, 2 , 21 – 24 with a predominance of satisfactory 1 st and 5 th Apgar scores. 22 The bivariate analysis found a statistically significant association between sex and OC type, showing a higher occurrence of CP among women and CL/P among men, as in previous studies.…”

“…Most of those born with any type of non-syndromic OC in Brazil were self-reported as white, in line with previous studies. 24,25 However, others 15,22,24 found a higher occurrence of OC in non-white children, who, due to great social inequality, would be distributed in low-income social strata, thus having less access to the health system. These findings may be related to the effect of racial miscegenation in Brazil in the genotype determination, and the lack of standardization in the field of ethnic classification in the Live Birth Declaration.…”

“…These findings may be related to the effect of racial miscegenation in Brazil in the genotype determination, and the lack of standardization in the field of ethnic classification in the Live Birth Declaration. 24 , 25 Thus, it is recommended that future studies be carried out to better understand the role of parents’ age and ethnicity in the occurrence of OC.…”

“…The epidemiological profile of OC based on maternal and child health care variables was similar to that found by other descriptive studies. 22 , 24 , 25 Among the live births with OC, most of the mothers were in the first, single pregnancy and had had seven or more prenatal consultations. Authors 22 mention that women, upon receiving the diagnosis of OC in the fetus, decide to carry out more prenatal consultations, or that, when they perform more prenatal appointments, they identify the presence of the malformation and decide to interrupt the pregnancy.…”

“…26 The fact that the majority of the children born were term reveals normal weight and length gain. In addition, a higher occurrence of normal weight 23,24 in those born with OC favors their adequacy to extrauterine life, since mortality rates in this weight range are lower. 22 With regard to socioeconomic and demographic variables, the profile of OC was in agreement with the literature.…”