Newborn screening can detect conditions that can affect a child’s long-term health or survival. It is an essential public health approach that enables the early detection and management of several congenital disorders. Through early detection, diagnosis, and intervention can prevent death or disability and enable children to reach their full potential. Yearly, millions of babies around the world are routinely screened, by using a few drops of blood from the newborn’s heel, for certain genetic, endocrine, and metabolic disorders, and are also tested for hearing loss and critical congenital heart defects (CCHDs) prior to discharge from a hospital or in a birthing center. These have been an integral part of routine newborn care in most developed countries for five decades, either as a health directive or mandated by law.
In the Philippines, newborn screening began as a small pilot program in Manila in 1996 and became a nationwide program institutionalized in 2004 law that requires newborn screening be offered to all newborns supported by national health insurance. NBS was integrated into the public health delivery system with the enactment of the Newborn Screening Act of 2004 (Republic Act 9288) from 1996 to December 2010. Newborn screening program in the Philippines currently includes the screening of six disorders: Congenital Hypothyroidism, Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, Phenylketonuria, Galactosemia, Glucose-6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase Deficiency, and Maple Syrup Urine Disease. Moreover, newborn screenng in the Philippines now includes screening for over 20 conditions including multiple metabolic and hemoglobin conditions detectable through multiple laboratory procedures.
Additionally, babies can appear healthy when born, and a condition will go unnoticed or undiagnosed. With this, it is difficult for physicians to diagnose these conditions at birth. And when the time doctors are able to recognize and identify the disorder, irreparable damage to the baby has already taken place. That’s why newborn Screening is important in detecting these disorders in life so that management could be instituted immediately. Luckily, these screenings and tests can go a long way in preventing this occurrence and allow these children the chance to thrive.
//Chirel Rose B. Café – CMU On-the-Job Trainee
References
Newborn Screening Portal | CDC. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/newbornscreening/index.html
Newborn Screening Program | Department of Health website. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://doh.gov.ph/newborn-screening
The importance of newborn screenings. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.parkview.com/community/dashboard/the-importance-of-newborn-screenings
Padilla, C. (n.d.). AB014. Expanding newborn screening and the initiation of regional follow-up in the Philippines. https://atm.amegroups.com. Retrieved from https://atm.amegroups.com/article/view/7463/8206