FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
May 21, 2021

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) is one of ten organizations across the United States to receive a competitive grant from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities Branch to improve the state’s capacity for birth defects surveillance. 

This $1.5 million grant will be awarded over a five-year period to the South Carolina Birth Defects Program (SCBDP), which is overseen by DHEC.

“While we know about the birth defects that are identified prior to birth or identified soon after delivery during the neonatal period, unfortunately, there are a large number of defects that are missed unless we check with pediatricians' offices, prenatal offices, and other healthcare settings,” said Vinita Oberoi Leedom, Manager of DHEC’s SCBDP and principal investigator of the study. “Finding and counting these defects will help our state better estimate how many people have birth defects, connect them to services, and help make a difference through research. This grant will help us to do that." 

Dr. Sherri Taylor, Maternal Fetal Medicine specialist at Prisma Health, sees thousands of patients a year who have high-risk pregnancies, and she also serves on the SCBDP Advisory Council. 

“This is a great opportunity for providers and the department of public health to partner so we can gain knowledge about statewide rates of birth defects,” said Dr. Taylor. “Physicians will be able to tell families how common certain birth defects are in our state. We will have better data, can design better programs based on that data, and offer improved counseling for all of our patients." 

The SCBDP currently works with healthcare providers across the state to identify birth defects in pregnant women and in children under age two who have been admitted to the hospital. This data is used to monitor numbers of birth defects, and to refer families to services. The SCBDP follows National Birth Defects Prevention Network guidelines on surveillance of birth defects. 

Birth defects are structural or metabolic changes that are already there when a baby is born and they can affect any part of the body and how the body looks, works, or both. Birth defects can vary from mild to severe and the well-being of a child affected with a birth defect can depend on several factors, including early detection and intervention.

View the South Carolina Birth Defects Resource Guide for more information, or visit  the CDC website here.

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