Shanghai's inborn defect center established

The nation's incidence of congenital deformity is 5.6 percent, which means that there are 900,000 children born with various inborn diseases in China annually.

With couples allowed to have three children, the increased age of mothers plus other environmental reasons bring more challenges to newborn health, medical experts said on Saturday.

They made the comments during the establishment of the Shanghai Birth Defects Prevention and Healthcare Center at the Shanghai International Peace Maternity and Child Health Hospital.

The center will help perfect the inborn deformity prevention and control network, enhance talent training and promote education on deformity prevention and control.

A multidisciplinary system and professional teams offering clinical guidance and service from pre-pregnancy, prenatal, newborn and children's health care have been established at the hospital, which will push the inborn deformity work in Shanghai and offer suggestion on health policies.

Ti Gong