The Incidence of Congenital Major Malformations in Central Anatolia: A Study of 7868 Newborns

Major malformation screening was made in 7868 mewborns at Konya Maternity and Children Care State Hospital, Turkey, January through October in 1988. Newborns, 28 weeks old and over were subjected to physical examination and the blood type determinations when needed. Blood type determinations were made for all mothers who gave birth. During 10 months period, of the 7868 babies born 3762 were female and the remaining 4106 babies were males. Among the 218 stillborn babies, 95 of them were female and 123 were males. 75 babies born with major malformations, and 66 (88%) of 75 had single and the remaining 9 (12%) had multiple malformations. The overall incidence is found ta be 0.9% and 0.11% for single and multiple malformations, respectively. About 51% of 66 newborns had musculo-skeletal system, 30% central nervous system, 14% digestive system, 1,5% circulatory systern, 1,5% urogenital system malformations, respectively. Also, musculo-skletal system malformations were found more often in males than female infants. Similarly, pes equino-varus was predorninant among the males whereas polydactylism among the females. In musculo-skeletal malformation system, stillbirth frequency is rather low (3 females and 1 male out of 33 malformed cases). The most stillbirths were seen in central nervous system (13 female and 3 male out of 20 cases). Anencephalus seemed to appear more often in female infants !han the male ones, and anencephalus and hydrocephalus females were stillborn infants. Multiple major malformations