Prevent birth defects and protect health at the beginning of life

Birth defect refers to the abnormality of body structure, function or metabolism that occurs before birth, which is an important cause of early abortion, stillbirth, infant death and congenital disability.

At present, there are more than 8,000 known birth defects, of which congenital heart disease, limb disability, cleft lip and palate, Down syndrome, thalassemia and so on, the public is relatively familiar with.

According to statistics, the total incidence of birth defects in China is about 5.6%, which is close to the level of middle-income countries in the world, but due to the huge population base, there are still hundreds of thousands of new birth defects every year.

Giving birth to a healthy child is the expectation of every family. Birth defects bring heavy economic burden and mental pressure to families and society, and have become a major public health problem affecting the quality of our population and the level of group health.

The key of birth defect intervention is prevention. In recent years, the state has vigorously promoted the comprehensive prevention and control of birth defects, realizing the transformation from "passive defense" to "active prevention".

Health education, pre-marital medical check-ups, pre-pregnancy check-ups, and folic acid supplementation services were coordinated and promoted, with the rate of pre-pregnancy check-ups reaching 76.5 percent and 96.9 percent, respectively.

At the same time, China has provided preventive services such as prenatal screening and diagnosis, issued a quality control index system for prenatal screening and diagnosis, strengthened service implementation and quality management, and reduced major birth defects resulting in death and serious disability.

The national rate of prenatal screening has reached 91.3 percent. For newborns, intensive disease screening diagnosis and treatment intervention to prevent and reduce congenital disabilities.

Data from the National Health Commission show that through unremitting efforts, China's prevention and control of birth defects has made remarkable progress and results.

Compared with five years ago, the infant mortality rate caused by birth defects and the mortality rate of children under five years old have been reduced by more than 30%, and the incidence of serious disabling birth defects such as neural tube defects and Down syndrome has been reduced by 23%.

Some intervention and relief projects for children with birth defects are also being actively promoted, such as the central special lottery public welfare fund to support intervention and relief for birth defects;

Many provinces have expanded the number of functional birth defect relief diseases, so that relief benefits can cover a wider range of people. It can be said that China has formed a comprehensive prevention and control strategy of birth defects with Chinese characteristics.

It should also be noted that the prevention of birth defects is facing new situations and difficulties. For example, it is well known that the best childbearing age for women is 25 (±3) years old,

but in recent years, due to social factors such as work pressure, the average childbearing age in large and medium-sized cities has been delayed to about 30 years old, and the proportion of pregnant women over 35 years old has increased,

resulting in a significant increase in the risk of birth defects. At the same time, the progress of the prevention of birth defects in the floating population is slow, and the incidence of birth defects in individual regions is on the rise, and these problems need to be solved.

Preventing birth defects and protecting the health of the starting point of life are the first gateway to high-quality population development. Strengthen knowledge popularization and health education,

and improve the awareness rate of prevention and control knowledge among people of childbearing age; By strengthening the construction of service institutions, solving the problem of inadequate and unbalanced service resources, and optimizing prevention and control services, we can further reduce the incidence of birth defects.

Break the "white hair feeding black" scam

"Can make white hair naturally turn black" "from natural, herbal extraction, no side effects" "no various lead and mercury components, no scalp damage"... Various hair care products are flooding e-commerce platforms and physical stores, and some products even claim to be able to "raise white hair to black."

Recently, CCTV news revealed the truth of "white hair raising black". Bad merchants claim that they do not need to dye their hair, and can turn white hair into black hair by using so-called hair care products, but they change the "vest" hair coloring means, and even use a way to increase health risks to deceive consumers. Consumers should be vigilant.

Right now, the appearance level economy is booming. Hair coloring is increasingly becoming a "must-have" choice for people with white hair. But always dye hair, will also bring a lot of trouble. The first is the trouble, dyeing hair is time-consuming and laborious, and new white hair will appear soon after dyeing.

The second is to worry about the effect of hair dye on health. Bad businesses are to seize the psychology of consumers, claiming that they do not need to dye their hair, and can develop white hair into black hair through a healthy and natural way.

Bad merchants avoid the use of hair dye words, on the one hand, in order to deceive consumers, on the other hand, in order to escape the strict system of special cosmetics registration management of hair dye.

According to the Regulations on the Supervision and Administration of Cosmetics, which will be implemented in 2021, the state implements registration management for special cosmetics and record management for ordinary cosmetics.

Hair dye belongs to special cosmetics and must be registered. Merchants will "white hair nourishing black" products disguised as black promoting herbal extract plant essence, under the guise of ordinary cosmetics, to achieve the purpose of filing and listing sales.

Supervision of the so-called "white hair raising black" products launched on the market cannot be absent. The exposed products and the relevant responsible persons shall be severely punished according to law; Platforms and media that assist in false propaganda should not be allowed to "walk away as if nothing had happened",

but should find out whether they are "accomplices committing crimes" and deal with them accordingly according to the seriousness of the circumstances. In addition, to supervise the self-discipline of the industry, only by timely finding out the black sheep that destroy public trust can the hair care industry develop healthily.