Identification of Neonatal Prevalence Trends in Gastroschisis: 2016–2024

BACKGROUND: Gastroschisis prevalence in the United States has varied over the last several decades, with recent reports indicating a downward trend through 2022. OBJECTIVE/METHODS: To determine if this trend continued beyond the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency, we examined data from the Children's Hospital Association's Pediatric Health Information System (PHIS) for critically ill neonates admitted from 2016 to 2024. RESULTS: The national prevalence for critically ill neonates with gastroschisis significantly decreased (p ≤ 0.0001) between 2016 and 2024, with consistent declines across all regions in the United States. In contrast, trends for congenital diaphragmatic hernia and intestinal atresias remained stable or increased during the same period. We observed a -31.1% change in the prevalence of gastroschisis in critically ill neonates using PHIS, which was similar to the changes reported using population-level data sets from the Centers for Disease Control (-34.2%, -32.3%). CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate an ongoing decline in gastroschisis prevalence in the critically ill neonatal population, similar to changes seen at the population level, highlighting the need to explore potential causes.