Maternal age as a risk factor for congenital malformations Edad materna como factor de riesgo para malformaciones congénitas.

Abstract

We studied 131,899 consecutive births at the Maternity of the University of Chile Clinical Hospital, finding 4887 newborns with congenital malformations (representing a rate of 37.05 per 1000 alive newborns). Between January 1982 and December 1992 there were 41,344 births and 295 stillbirths (0.7%). Among the latter, 41 were malformed (13.9%). A graphic comparing the mean annual rates of malformations and maternal ages, shows a sustained increase in malformations form 1972 to 1988, that decreases thereafter and stabilizes since 1982. There is a marked parallelism between the curves of malformation rates and maternal age (t21 = 1.057, p < 0.1). It is concluded that the risk of congenital malformations increases along with maternal ages.