[Gastroschisis: A pandemic with increasing rates? ECLAMC experience in Chile 1982-2015]

Several communications have reported a significant increase in the prevalence of gastroschisis at birth in the last three decades. In many Countries it is referred to as "a pandemic strongly associated to low maternal age".

To verify if there has been a significant increase in the prevalence of gastroschisis at birth in Chile, and if this rate is associated with a low maternal age.

The study was performed using the ECLAMC data base from 26 Chilean Hospitals. Comparison between prevalence rates and maternal age categories were made using the X² test or Fisher exact Test. The time series was studied comparing average tendencies using the Student t test and Wilcoxon-test.

There were 721,901 newborns in the period 1982-2014, among which 107 were diagnosed with gastroschisis (1.48/10,000). Around three-quarters (75.7%) of them were born from mothers younger than 25. The mean maternal age was 21.6 years in mothers of children with gastroschisis, while the mean maternal age of all mothers from Chile was almost 28 years old. The gastroschisis prevalence at birth rate was constant at around 1/10,000 until 1994. From 1995 this rate has a significant increasing tendency of 0.1591 by year (P=.00714). This increase is about a 300% on average for the 1995-2014 period, compared with the previous one (P<.00001).

There has been a significant increase in the gastroschisis prevalence at birth in Chile from 1995, and this anomaly is associated with a low maternal age.