ABSTRACT
Globally, birth defects are emerging as a leading cause of infant
death. During the last century, surgical correction of such
defects helped define the new specialty of pediatric surgery.
In the same era, congenital rubella syndrome and the
thalidomide disaster promoted the epidemiological investiga-
tion of birth defects and established the field of teratology. In
the twenty-first century, improved birth defects surveillance
can help delineate the causes of unsolved anomalies, improve
fetal counseling (and therapy), identify anomaly associations
(that illuminate both management and underlying develop-
mental biology) and facilitate outcomes comparison by
appropriate classification of surgical caseload.
