ARCHIVED: Figure 1: Congenital anomalies surveillance in Canada: results of a 2006-2007 survey on availability of selected data variables in Canadian provinces and territories – Down syndrome in Western Australia

Figure 1 captures time trends for Down syndrome live births, stillbirths, and fetuses from terminated pregnancies per 1,000 births in Western Australia between 1980 and 2004, using a horizontal line graph. The x-axis represents years between 1980 and 2004, and the y-axis represents the rate per 1,000 births using a scale of 0.0 to 3.5. In 2004, the Down syndrome stillbirth rate per 1,000 births was 0.12 (lowest endpoint estimate on the y-axis), showing little change since 1980. The Down syndrome live birth rate per 1,000 births in 2004 was 1.10. The linear estimates for live births show some fluctuation in the early 1990s, but illustrate little overall change between the years 1980 and 2004.  In contrast, the Down syndrome pregnancy termination rate per 1,000 live births increased markedly from less than 0.1 in 1980 to a rate of 1.72 in 2004 (endpoint estimate approximately midway on the y-axis). Despite little change in stillbirth and live birth rates between 1980 and 2004, the graph shows that the total rate of Down syndrome during pregnancy (including fetuses from terminated pregnancies) more than doubled to a rate of 2.94 by 2004 (highest endpoint estimate on the y-axis), highlighting the impact of prenatal diagnosis and subsequent termination of pregnancies on the changing prevalence of Down syndrome in Western Australia.

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