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Every pregnancy has about a 3-5% chance having a baby with a major birth defect, that’s about 1 in 33 pregnancies. Those birth defects include things like heart defects, spina bifida, and cleft lip and palate. When we talk about all birth defects, those include functional and developmental delays, like autism, in addition to the major and minor structural defects.
Jade Elliott sat down with Al Romeo, RN, PhD, Utah Department of Health, to discuss birth defects and what you can do to try and prevent them on this episode of the Baby Your Baby Podcast.
The study of those birth defects is called teratology. Experts at MotherToBaby Utah are teratology information specialists. This means they can answer your questions about exposures that might cause birth defects or other poor outcomes.
Some of the things to do to reduce the chance of having birth defects include: take folic acid before pregnancy to help prevent spina bifida; control diabetes before pregnancy to prevent heart and other defects; avoid alcohol during pregnancy to prevent heart defects and developmental delays; avoid smoking during pregnancy and breastfeeding to prevent low birth weight and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS); avoid areas with Zika virus to prevent microcephaly, other defects, and developmental delays; keep up to date on vaccines, including the chicken pox (varicella) vaccine, before pregnancy; talk to your doctor about stopping your isotretinoin (Accutane) before trying to become pregnant; and talk to your doctor about your medications before pregnancy and before stopping them.
Visit MotherToBaby.org to find a fact sheets on a variety of medications, conditions, and other exposures.
Click here to listen to our podcast on taking medications while pregnant or breastfeeding.
The Baby Your Baby program provides many resources for all pregnant women and new moms in Utah. There is also expert advice from the Utah Department of Health and Intermountain Healthcare that air each week on KUTV 2News.