| We describes a study in which conventional wisdom about congenital malformations was investigated, the two main objectives being to list mothers' ideas by comparing six well-known causes of congenital abnormalities (ingestion of alcoholic beverages, smoking tobacco, drug use, marriage between relatives (consanguinity), rubella infection, maternal age) with explanations current in the general population and to discover the most common fallacies held by the general population concerning such abnormalities. The data were collected from 1 January to 31 December 1995 during a population study in which mothers were interviewed in hospitals in the city of Pelotas (population 400,000), Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil. On each day of the study, the first three... |
