The annual report is out from the Iowa Birth Defects Registry. The report tracks birth defect rates statewide, risk factors, research and the impact of education efforts. Registry director Dr. Paul Romitti, at the University of Iowa College of Public Health, says there were no major changes in the latest numbers. The most common birth defects reported are again heart defects and muscular-skeletal defects. Dr. Romitti says the number of defects followed a pattern across Iowa, as they parallel the population in the counties.About 16-hundred pregnancies in Iowa are diagnosed with birth defects every year, and they’re the leading cause of death in infants under one year old. Dr. Romitti says some birth defects can be prevented simply through mothers improving their lifestyles. Dr. Romitti says expectant women and hopefuls can help prevent birth defects by taking folic acid and by avoiding tobacco and alcohol.
SEARCH THIS SITE
RECENT NEWS
- Iowa housing market movement looks to be back where it was before COVID
- Grassley: Pentagon workers spent millions of pandemic dollars on personal expenses
- After missing Iowa trucker’s body found, wife says: ‘Things don’t add up.’
- Western Iowa Tech to pay millions to students to settle lawsuit
- $18.8 million workforce housing development planned in Spirit Lake