National estimates and race/ethnic‐specific variation of selected birth defects in the United States, 1999–2001

Abstract

This study can be used to evaluate individual state surveillance data, and to help plan for public health care and educational needs. It also provides valuable data on racial/ethnic patterns of selected major birth defects.

Maternal nativity as a risk factor for gastroschisis: A population‐based study

“…Compared with NH-white women, NH-black and Hispanic women had an 81% and 40% lower risk, respectively, of delivering a live born singleton infant with gastroschisis. Although our findings agree with several studies that found a lower risk of gastroschisis among NH-black women (Canfield et al, 2006;Williams et al, 2005), our observation that Hispanic ethnicity is protective was not consistently reported in previous studies. Using popula- tion-based data on nearly 1000 cases from 11 states with active case-finding, Canfield et al (2006) reported that Hispanic women had a significantly higher unadjusted birth prevalence of gastroschisis compared with NHwhite women (PR, 1.25; 95% CI, 1.09-1.43).…”

“…Although our findings agree with several studies that found a lower risk of gastroschisis among NH-black women (Canfield et al, 2006;Williams et al, 2005), our observation that Hispanic ethnicity is protective was not consistently reported in previous studies. Using popula- tion-based data on nearly 1000 cases from 11 states with active case-finding, Canfield et al (2006) reported that Hispanic women had a significantly higher unadjusted birth prevalence of gastroschisis compared with NHwhite women (PR, 1.25; 95% CI, 1.09-1.43). Likewise, a study investigating 308 cases in New York reported that, after adjusting for maternal age, Hispanic women were 1.5 times more likely to have an offspring affected by gastroschisis (95% CI, 1.12-2.00; Salihu et al, 2003).…”

“…Young maternal age is the most consistently reported risk factor (Baerg et al, 2003;Feldkamp et al, 2007;Hougland et al, 2005;Saada et al, 2005). Other maternal factors that have been suspected to increase gastroschisis risk include maternal smoking, maternal use of vasoactive substances, low socioeconomic status, low pregnancy body mass index, and Hispanic ethnicity (Haddow et al, 1993;Torfs et al, 1994;Lam et al, 1999;Werler et al, 2002;Salihu et al, 2003;Saada et al, 2005;Canfield et al, 2006;Feldkamp et al, 2007;Stothard et al, 2009). More recently, maternal birthplace (nativity) has been reported to affect the risk of congenital malformations, including gastroschisis; foreign-born women have a lower risk of delivering an infant with gastroschisis than U.S.-born women (Zhu et al, 2006;Vu et al, 2008).…”

Variation in the Prevalence of Congenital Heart Defects by Maternal Race/Ethnicity and Infant Sex

“…Although there is little information previously published on race/ethnic-or sex-specific prevalence of specific types of CHD to which we can directly compare our results, 19,20 there are published reports on race/ethnicity patterns in general. Canfield et al 8 reported a lower prevalence of tetralogy of Fallot for infants born to Hispanic women compared with infants born to NH-white women; in our study lower prevalence is statistically significant only for Hispanic females. Ferencz et al 26 reported a higher prevalence of both tricuspid valve atresia/ stenosis and pulmonary valve atresia/stenosis for NH-blacks compared with NH-whites; in our study rate ratios for NH-black males and females, pulmonary valve atresia/stenosis-and tricuspid valve atresia/stenosis-affected infants were elevated compared with NH-whites.…”

“…37 In addition, birth defects registries that only ascertain cases of birth defects in the first year of life exclude infants who died shortly after birth without an autopsy, or diagnosed later in childhood. Moreover, our study only includes live births, whereas other studies 8,12 include data on stillbirths and terminations. Without medical record review, the FBDR data also lack information on case confirmation or case severity.…”