Birth defects pose a challenge

Children with birth defects, those abandoned by their parents and orphans deserve greater attention and help to overcome the great odds they face. Hopefully, the country will see a positive change in the lives of such children. Wang Yiqing writes on the three challenges.

Reducing the number of children born with birth defects has become a big challenge for China. A majority of children adopted by social welfare institutions are physically challenged. For instance, Tianjin Institute of Children's Welfare adopts about 160 orphans every year, and the rate of physically challenged and disease-prone children is as high as 98 percent.

Every year about 900,000 children are born with congenital anomaly in China, which means a child with such a defect is born almost every 30 seconds. Nationwide, about 30 million families, or about 10 percent of the country's total, have given birth to children with birth defects, and the rate of birth of such children has been rising in recent years. According to a Health Ministry report, it was 5.6 percent in 2012.