A baby with physical defects is born every 30 seconds in China
An increasing number of children with birth defects - such as cleft lips, deformed toes and fingers, brain problems, and congenital heart disease - are being born in China. The Chinese government has announced that a baby with physical defects is born every 30 seconds.
The Beijing Municipal Health Bureau informs that in 1997, there were 90 children per 10,000 born with some sort of birth defect in Beijing. By 2008, that number was 170 per 10,000. The city’s birth defect rate has almost doubled in the last decade.
There are concerns that the defects, which occur across the country, could be related to heavy pollution – caused by China’s increasing industrial output and poor enforcement of environmental standards.
State-run China Daily quoted Peking University health professor Ren Aiguo as saying: “Chemical and toxic emissions impact the health of the parents, so it is likely they also impact the health of an unborn baby.”
Some provinces with large coal and chemical industries, such as Guangdong or Shanxi, seem to have some of the highest rates.
A study carried out in Taiyuan in 2007, capital of Shanxi, showed that an abundance of fine particles in the air is one of the leading factors in spontaneous abortion, birth defects, and infant death.
It is hard to pinpoint the cause of these defects, but they are helping to fuel broader concern about the health impact of acute air, water and soil pollution in China.
It is also believed that modern urban lifestyles may function as another possible factor for the growth in birth defects. Individuals should also think twice about their busy, stressful schedules, according to an editorial in Tuesday’s China Daily newspaper. All this is politically sensitive for China.
Greenpeace China said in a statement released Sunday: “The statement from the National Population and Family Planning Commission once again proved that coal burning is not only a climate killer, but one of the major health hazards in China.”
Improvements in health facilities may also account for part of the increase.
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