Despite the annual decline in the infant mortality rate, the demography in China has been challenged by a jump in the number of children born with birth defects, a grim conundrum across society, said Ma Xu, deputy of the National People’s Congress (NPC).

In the past few years, about 100,000 infants with birth defects have been abandoned in China every year, while in the 1980s, there were only about 5,000, according to a rough survey in 2010, Ma said.

Ma, who is also director of the Science and Technology Department at the National Health and Family Planning Commission, showed his concern on Wednesday at the ongoing annual two sessions -- the NPC and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), which are being held from March 3 to 15 this year.

In June, 2011, the first baby hatch or Infant Safety Island opened in a charity house in Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei Province. In the following years, a number of establishments aiming to accommodate unwanted babies have been spotted in Jiangsu, Shaanxi, Guizhou, Fujian, Heilongjiang and Guangdong provinces and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. However, those baby hatches are experiencing great difficulties. For example, the overwhelming number of abandoned babies in Guangdong forced the local baby hatch to close after operating for no more than 50 days.

About 99 percent of infants and children in the baby hatches are born with defects, which proves the ineffectiveness of prenatal screening, said Ma.

According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, despite the burgeoning increase in abandoned infants in some big cities, the ministry does not intend to call off the pilot baby hatches, though it may adjust the layout and numbers of institutes in some areas.

Ma attributed the rising number of birth defects to insufficient prenatal screening and he proposed that the government and social organizations finance the medical exam so that prenatal service could be provided freely to both the local and migrant population to reduce the number of disabled infants.

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