China birth defects soar due to pollution -report

[donsu]

http://uk.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUKPEK155250._CH_.242020071029


Birth defects in Chinese infants have soared nearly 40 percent since 2001, a government report said, and officials linked the rise to China's worsening environmental degradation.

The rate of defects had risen from 104.9 per 10,000 births in 2001, to 145.5 in 2006, affecting nearly one in 10 families, China's National Population and Family Planning Commission said in a report on its Web site (www.chinapop.gov.cn).

Infants with birth defects now accounted for "about 4 to 6 percent of total births every year", the family planning agency said. Of these, 30 percent would die and 40 percent would be "disabled".

The World Health Organisation estimates about 3 to 5 percent of children worldwide are born with birth defects.

China's coal-rich northern province of Shanxi, a centre of noxious emissions from large-scale coke and chemical industries, had the highest rate of defects, Xinhua news agency said in a report carried by Monday's Beijing News.
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every pregnant woman's nightmare - will the baby be alright

and broken hearts when they are not

[demnan]

1. I remember seeing a Chinese woman with birth defects

in the media a couple of months ago from that northern region. She had a stretched face. It was really nightmarish to look at. She said she had struggled all her life and one of her daughters looked like her. I hate to think of hardship that woman has suffered.