Friday, May 08, 2009

Prenatal Diagnosis has been Lethal for the Unborn in Canada

From the 2008 Canadian Perinatal Health Report:

One major technologic change that has had a profound effect on the frequency of stillbirths and live births <500 g, and on trends in fetal and infant mortality as a whole, was the introduction and widespread uptake of prenatal diagnosis and pregnancy termination for serious congenital anomalies. Stillbirths <500 g that were due to congenital anomalies or pregnancy termination constituted 11.6% of all stillbirths <500 g in 1985. This proportion increased to 40.4% in 2003. The proportion of neonatal deaths <500 g that were due to congenital anomalies or pregnancy termination increased from 3.6% in 1985 to 19.7% in 2003. Note the change in the cause of death coding of stillbirths <500 g that (presumably) resulted from pregnancy termination following prenatal diagnosis—from the mid-1990s onwards, such deaths have been increasingly assigned pregnancy termination as the cause of death, rather than congenital anomaly.