Abstract:
Introduction:
Birth defects have become a serious public health issue in the world causing a higher morbidity
and mortality among children. Identification of the possible risk factors, specially the
modifiable risk factors for birth defects has become a top priority in order to prevent birth
defects.
Objectives:
This study was carried out to identify the associations between maternal health and health
behaviours of mothers during preconception and antenatal periods and the non-syndromic or
non-genetic structural birth defects (SBD) among their infants in Galle district, Sri Lanka.
Methods:
A hospital and field clinics-based case-control study was carried out using 315 infants with
non-genetic or non-syndromic SBD and 630 infants without any birth defect or any chronic
disease condition. Data were collected through interviews with the mothers and through
medical records of the mothers and the infants. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis were performed to detect the associates for SBD. p<0.05 was considered as the level of significance.
