Surveillance on environmental risk factors for Congenital Anomalies

The surveillance of congenital anomalies (CAs) is an adthevanced task carried out since long time by many nastional or regional register tha operawte at global and European level in the framework of the ICBDSR and networks respectively. Fetal life is a hingly sensitive period to environmental exposures, and crucial exposures may occur before pregnancy is recognised. Several environmental and exogenous factors and agents are strongly suspectedor provento damage or cause the abnormal development of the fetus, trough teratogenic or gene-environment interaction. Evidence based primary prevention of CAs is feasible against several risk factors (e.g, obesitiy, infectious and toxic agents) and versus protective factors (e.g., folic acid supplematation and glycemic control in diabietic women)