Baby born with birth defects every 30 seconds

Birth defects in China have increased by nearly 40 percent since 2001, according to statistics from the country's birth deformity monitoring center.

The figure was cited in a recent report by Jiang Fan, deputy head of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, at a conference in Chengdu, capital city of Southwest China's Sichuan Province.

Jiang said the rate of defects among all Chinese infants rose from 104.9 per 10,000 births in 2001 to 145.5 in 2006, affecting nearly one in every 10 Chinese households.