A Five Years Study of Occurrence and Associated Risk Factors for Birth Defects in a Tertiary Care Hospital in Central Nepal

Introduction: Congenital anomalies account for 7.0% of neonatal deaths in Nepal. The present study was carried out to determine the overall rate of congenital malformations, incidence and prevalence in live births, still birth and incidence affecting various organ systems, at Bharatpur Hospital, Nepal. Methods: All the intramural deliveries between Jan 2015 to Dec 2019 were included in the study. All the newborns were looked for congenital malformations after birth within seven days. Antenatal ultrasonography findings were noted. 2D echocardiography was also used for all congenital heart diseases, along with routine X-ray chest. A total of 131 babies with congenital problem were studied and the information was recorded in WHO NBBD Proforma. Data were recorded in MS Excel and SPSS 16 version was used for analysis. Results: Out of the total 60160 deliveries, 131 (0.21% of total birth) were with congenital malformations, sex wise distribution was 65 (49.5%) females and 63 (48.7%) males and three (1.8%) were ambiguous. Oro-facial malformation (49, 37.4%) was the commonest form of malformation followed by the musculoskeletal system (31, 23.6 %), centre nervous system (31, 23.6%) and congenital malformations of genital organs (8, 6.0%). Conclusions: The incidence of congenital malformation in this study was 0.21%. Females were more common than males and oro-facial malformation was the commonest type of malformation. Lack of antenatal visit, lack of folic acid during pre-conception period and low socioeconomic status were the commonest risk factors.