Risk factors for birth defects: Data from the Atlanta Birth Defects Case‐Control Study

Abstract

The Atlanta Birth Defects Case-Control Study data comprises information obtained from interviews with parents of 4,900 babies born with major birth defects and with the parents of 3,000 babies born without defects. The source of cases is the Centers for Disease Control's Metropolitan Atlanta Congenital Defects program; the case-control study is population-based. Birth defects are classified into 92 groups and cross-tabulated by 105 exposure/risk factor variables; data from selected cross-tabulations are presented. The associations of each of the 105 exposure variables with all types of defects combined are presented, as are the associations of each of the 92 defect groups with the specific exposure variable, maternal diabetes. These data can be used to evaluate hypotheses arising from other sources, and for the purpose of "generating" hypotheses. The data describing all 92 x 105 cross-tabulations are available to other investigators on floppy disk; write to Chief, Birth Defects and Genetic Diseases Branch, Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta, Georgia 30333.

Congenital anomalies of the kidney and the urinary tract: A murmansk county birth registry study

“…Based on the Atlanta Birth Defects Case-control Study, Erickson (1991) reports robust associations between all defects and maternal febrile illnesses (specifically, "any fever" or "flu" experienced by the study respondents during the 4 months prior to conception and the first trimester). Unfortunately, we could not separate infectious diseases by presence or absence of fever, because no such information was available in the registry database.…”

“…Even though the emphasis in birth defect risk-factor studies has been on febrile infections in the context of hyperthermia as the teratogen, there is good evidence that maternal non-febrile infections and chronic diseases do indeed pose potential risks of birth defects and susceptibility to disease after birth (e.g., Erickson, 1991;Dong et al, 2015;Lee et al, 2015).…”

Corticosteroid use during pregnancy and risk of orofacial clefts

“…These confounders were selected using previously described associations with clefts found in the literature. [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] Information on maternal age at the start of pregnancy, parity and smoking status during pregnancy was obtained from the Danish Medical Birth Registry; the mother's place of origin and her place of residence at the start of pregnancy were obtained from the Danish Central Person Register, which contains complete and continually updated demographic information on all Danish residents; 24 the level of education and socioeconomic status of the mother during the year in which pregnancy started was obtained from Statistics Denmark.…”

Recreational Drug Use: A Major Risk Factor for Gastroschisis?

“…Introduction -Epidemiological methods structured format (Werler et al 1999), (Erickson, 1991), (Hernandez-Diaz et al 2000). Where possible the use of validated questions and scales are advised.…”