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Show Birth defects neea clarification certificates tnan did hospitals hospi-tals with fewer than 300 births per year. Despite the problems with reporting of some minor defects de-fects on birth certificates, the certificates seem to be a reliable source for determining de-termining rates of certain major "marker malformations." malforma-tions." Some of these, defects of the central nervous ner-vous system in particular, appear to occur less frequently fre-quently in Utah than in other areas. However, until a more extensive study is made, "the possibility that the lowered rates are due to sampling error cannot be discounted. Birth Defects in babies born in Utah may not be fully rsported on birth cer -tificates, and that could mean difficulty in pinpointing the causes of defects, according to a report prepared for the rate Department of Health. The problem is a significant signi-ficant one because information informa-tion from birth certificates is being used by the department depart-ment to develop the Utah Birth Defects Registry. The The report was prepared for the Department of Health by a team from Brigham Young University, and it appears ap-pears likely his group's findings are indicative of what happens at other Utah hospitals. If that's true, then state birth certificates may be an unreliable source of information about some defects. de-fects. Seegmiller's group compared com-pared seven hospital's nursery nur-sery records with birth certificates filed by the hos -pitals during a period in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The hospitals included one large and two smallers ones in an urban area of the state and four small ones In outlying areas. Some of these latter four were deliberately chosen because be-cause they were in areas where the Native American population is high, and certain cer-tain defects have been shown statistically to be more com -mon among Indians, Seeg-miller Seeg-miller explained. The researchers examined ex-amined records dealing with a total of 13,937 births. They found that 619 congenital malformations were recorded re-corded on hospital nursery records for those babies, but only 161 of those defects were reported on the corresponding cor-responding birth certificates. certifi-cates. Seegmiller said a part of the discrepancy may occur because later examination does not confirm the initial diagnosis recorded on the nursery record. The case load of ' the hospital ' also seems to have an effect; hospitals with more than 500 births per year recorded a much smaller percentage of malformations on the birth- |
