Objective: Analysis of incidence of birth defects prenatally and postnatally diagnosed in the Czech Republic during 2002 and a comparison with the years 1996-2001. Type of Study: Retrospective demographic-epidemiologic study. Methods: Analysis of incidence of birth defects (BD) in live- and still-born children and the number of prenatally diagnosed cases of birth defects and chromosomal aberrations in the Czech Republic in 2002. The incidence data of BD were obtained from those registered in statistical reports, birth defect of foetus or child, which have been registered in the Institute for Medical Information and Statistics of Czech Republic. Those data, which became available to the authors by the end of October 2003, were processed. Supplementary data on prenatally diagnosed cases were obtained from individual workplaces of medical genetics in the Czech Republic. Results: A total of 93,047 children were born in 2002 in the Czech Republic. There were reports on 3673 children with BD detected up to one year of life. There were 2131 boys ad 1542 girls affected with BD. The representation for 10,000 live-born children was 395.9 in comparison with 418.3 in the year 2000 and 405.0 in the year 2001. Conclusion: The total numbers of BD have not changed in the last three years, while the increase in 1998-2000 came to a halt in 2001 and 2002. The prenatal diagnostics for severe congenital defects in the Czech Republic prove to be at high level, which is comparable with advanced countries of the world.

        Klíčová slova: birth defect, prenatal diagnosis, secondary prevention, Down syndrome, anencephaly, spina bifi da, omphalocele, gastroschisis, agenesis and hypoplasia of kidneys