**Author details**

premarital counseling and testing can reduce its prevalence. Avoiding consanguineous marriage has the potential of reducing propagation of hereditary diseases

*Congenital Anomalies in Newborn Infants - Clinical and Etiopathological Perspectives*

**Secondary/tertiary prevention:** This aims to reduce the number of children delivered with congenital malformation, whereas tertiary prevention is aimed at cure and amelioration of problems once a child with a congenital birth defect is born. Postnatal neonatal examination and screening of newborn children is a strategy in tertiary prevention, because once an anomaly is detected ameliorative mea-

**Ultrasound screening of congenital anomalies with an option of pregnancy termination:** This has the potential of reducing the birth prevalence of congenital malformation but the issue of termination of pregnancy is the difficult part, as in many countries in Africa pregnancy termination can only be done when the life of the woman is at risk. Congenital malformations are not in themselves life threatening to the woman and therefore pregnancy cannot be terminated on account of

**A new concept [Targeted screening]:** The ideal thing is to screen all pregnant women for structural anomalies and test them for hereditary disorders and infections but the ideal is not always possible because the health care system in Africa is constrained by limited resource allocation. In view of this a transitional concept can be adopted pending acceptance of the whole population to prenatal screening and

Targeted screening can be offered to the following category of pregnant women; Women with; Previous history of babies with congenital anomalies, history of congenital anomaly in the family, index pregnancy with polyhydramnious, age more than 35 years, multiple gestation, consanguineous marriage, diabetes and

Birth defects or congenital anomalies are important cause of perinatal mortality and morbidity. In developed countries successes were achieved in screening, treatment and prevention over the years. In Africa the picture is different as many factors play a role in causing congenital anomalies different from those seen in developed countries. In Africa factors such as poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition, exposure to teratogens and poor environmental control play an important role. Screening, treatment and preventive services for congenital anomalies are poorly developed. To achieve control primary prevention should be established and strengthened and when this is achieved, then secondary and tertiary control should

congenital malformation in countries with restrictive abortion laws.

follow. Innovative strategies should be employed in this endeavor.

within population groups with hereditary diseases.

improve resource allocation to health care.

those with sickle cell disease/Thalassemia.

**13. Conclusion**

**210**

sures can be instituted.

Labaran Dayyabu Aliyu Obstetrics and Gynecology Department, College of Medicine Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria

\*Address all correspondence to: zainalabidinaliyu@yahoo.com

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
