Title: Congenital abnormalities in the East of Ireland 1997-2001. Report of the birth defect registries of the Eastern Regional Health Authority, North Eastern Health Board, South Eastern Health Board.
Authors: Eastern Regional Health Authority (ERHA); North Eastern Health Board (NEHB); South Eastern Health Board (SEHB)
Description: Congenital anomalies are an important cause of peri-natal mortality. In addition, major anomalies such as
neural tube defects (NTD) and chromosomal anomalies have lifelong consequences for individuals
themselves their families and the health and social services.
Surveillance of congenital anomalies is an important activity in any health service as a means of
monitoring trends in birth defects, early detection of unexpected rises in specific birth defects, and in
evaluating the outcome of health interventions and research. To date, there has been a paucity of
information on congenital anomalies in Ireland, mainly due to the lack of congenital anomaly surveillance
for much of the country. Until 1996, surveillance of birth defects by health board population based
registries was undertaken in four of the twenty six counties of the Republic of Ireland - counties Dublin,
Wicklow and Kildare (Dublin EUROCAT Register of the Eastern Regional Health Authority) and in county
Galway (Galway EUROCAT Register). Some surveillance of congenital anomalies was also being
undertaken in other areas. In 1997, three new registries were established, in the Southern Health Board,
the South-Eastern Health Board (SEHB) and the North Eastern Health Board (NEHB). Because of the
geographical proximity of the latter two health boards with the Eastern Regional Health Authority (ERHA),
a co-operative approach was adopted for surveillance along the eastern seaboard of Ireland. Between
them, these three regions have a catchment of more than half of the births in the country. This report is
the first publication of data from five years of surveillance of congenital anomalies in the three regions
(East of Ireland) from 1997-2001 and what follows is a brief outline of what is contained in the report.
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