Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Jan 15;113(2):123-127.
doi: 10.1002/bdr2.1849. Epub 2020 Dec 7.

Assessing the value of reviewing all fetal death records for birth defects surveillance, compared to only those with maternal anomaly codes

Ashley Tessarolo  1 , Glenda M Ramirez  1 , Dianna Contreras  1
Affiliations

Assessing the value of reviewing all fetal death records for birth defects surveillance, compared to only those with maternal anomaly codes

Ashley Tessarolo et al. Birth Defects Res. .

Abstract

Background: The Arizona Birth Defects Monitoring Program (ABDMP) creates case-finding lists of potential birth defects. As part of this, ABDMP includes all fetal death records, in addition to records for mothers and infants with an associated birth defect code. This project aims to understand the value of including all fetal deaths in case-finding, and to assess the impact on the rate of birth defects if all fetal death cases are not reviewed.

Methods: We assessed 2016-2017 fetal death records based on case-finding source and ICD-10 CM codes. We categorized cases by whether they had a hospital discharge ICD-10 CM code indicating a maternal diagnosis for a fetal anomaly (i.e., "O35" code), and compared them to cases reported only by a stillbirth code, meaning that a baby was born deceased, with no reference to birth defects. Positive and negative predictive values were calculated (PPV, NPV, respectively).

Results: For 2016-2017, fetal deaths make up 6% (n = 89) of all confirmed birth defects (n = 1,416), and fetal deaths with no O35 code make up 4% (n = 54) of all confirmed birth defects cases in Arizona. Had cases without an O35 code not been included, 4% (n = 54) of confirmed birth defect cases in Arizona for 2016-2017 would have been missed. The PPV was 68.6%.

Conclusion: The work involved in reviewing the additional 1,000 records per year is warranted by the value noted. It is evident that by including all fetal deaths we capture a more accurate picture of the occurrence of birth defects in Arizona.

Keywords: ICD-10 codes; birth defects; birth defects surveillance; fetal death; stillbirth.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

REFERENCES

    1. Duke, C. W., Correa, A., Romitti, P. A., Martin, J., & Kirby, R. S. (2009). Challenges and priorities for surveillance of stillbirths: A report on two workshops. Public Health Reports, 124(5), 652-659. https://doi.org/10.1177/003335490912400507
    1. Heinke, D., Nestoridi, E., Hernandez-Diaz, S., Williams, P. L., Rich-Edwards, J. W., Lin, A. E., … Yazdy, M. M. (2020). Risk of stillbirth for fetuses with specific birth defects. Obstetrics and Gynecology, 135(1), 133-140. https://doi.org/10.1097/AOG.0000000000003614
    1. Hoyert, D. L., & Gregory, E. C. (2016). Cause of fetal death: Data from the fetal death report, 2014. National Vital Statistics Reports, 65, 1-25.
    1. Ko, H. S., Kim, D. J., Chung, Y., Wie, J. H., Choi, S. K., Park, I. Y., … Shin, J. C. (2017). A national cohort study evaluating infant and fetal mortality caused by birth defects in Korea. BMJ Open, 7(11), e017963. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2017-017963
    1. MacDorman, M. F., & Gregory, E. C. W. (2015). Fetal and perinatal mortality: United States, 2013. National Vital Statistics Reports, 64(8), 1-24.

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources