Objective To estimate the incidence of major and minor congenital malformations among liveborn infants at King Abdulaziz University Hospital, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. An estimation of risk factors was also evaluated.

Methods Between March 2004 and May 2005, a total of 5356 babies born at King Abdulaziz University Hospital, were enrolled in this study for malformations. Details of cases were recorded after parents’ interviews, clinical, radiological, and laboratory evaluations.

Results One hundred and forty-seven (27.06/1000 live births) and 13 (2.39/1000 births) stillbirths had congenital anomalies. In all live births, incidences of major anomalies were 93.9% and minor were 6.1%. Mothers of babies with congenital malformation were 95.9% healthy, 3.4% were diabetic and 0.7% had cardiac malfomation. In 38.8% of cases parents were consanguineous. Among the live-born births, the most common system involved was cardiovascular (7.1/1000), followed by musculoskeletal/limb (4.1/1000), external genitalia (2.8/1000), urinary (2.6/1000), multiple chromosomal (2.2/1000), or facial (1.9/1000), central nervous system (1.9/1000), skin (1.7/1000), multiple single gene (1.3/1000), multiple sequence (0.75/1000), eyes (0.56/1000), unclassified (0.19/1000), musculoskeletal/abdominal (0.19/1000) and endocrine (0.19/1000).

Conclusion Importance of genetic counseling is revealed in our study since more than three quarters of mothers were under 36 years, and may well plan future pregnancies.⇓

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Fida et al