Decrease of perinatal mortality associated with congenital anomalies after prenatal screening was introduced in the Netherlands

OBJECTIVES: There has been much discussion about the relatively high perinatal mortality seen in the Netherlands (Buitendijk 2004, Europeristat 2009), for which congenital anomalies (CA) are known to be one of the four main risk factors. There was no nationwide routine prenatal screening for CA in the Netherlands until 2007. We have analysed data for a 14-year period from the EUROCAT registries to investigate the effect of the introduction of screening for CA on the perinatal mortality rate in the Netherlands and compared the results with those from other European registries. METHODS: We used... Mehr ...