Families of China’s children with birth defects too poor to see doctors

Li San picks up his two children from school every day by motorbike. Nearby, lines of coal trucks head off to the rest of China. The valleys are full of steelworks and heavy industry.When they get in, six-year-old Hong Wei eats his noodles and sits quietly in front of his school notebook. Hong Wei was born with an extra thumb on his right hand. His elder sister Lixia, who's 14, was born with a twisted left foot and walks with a heavy limp.The Li family, like many in Shanxi, central China, this family is too poor to go to the doctors. The parents don't know why their children were born with defects. They're simply left to guess."The air isn't good around here," says Li San San. "When it's bad, it's difficult to breathe, it looks gloomy and smoggy out there,” he tells a BBC reporter.

Shanxi, the country’s coal mining heartland is one of the most polluted places in the world. The rate of birth defects in this region is six times higher than the national average. A 2007 report said the rate of defects had risen 40% since 2001, from 104.9 per 10,000 births to 145.5 in 2006. A child is born with physical defects every 30 seconds, said Jiang Fan, from China's National Population and Family Planning Commission.

In February, senior family planning official in Shanxi, An Huanxiao, told the China Daily newspaper that the province's high rate of birth defects was related to environmental pollution.But doctors are more sceptical. A local survey carried out in 2002 concluded that birth defects were caused by malnutrition. In light of this the authorities decided to distribute enriched flour to poor families in the area.The Zhang family in the village of Gao Jiagou, has never had the benefit of proper medical attention. The two eldest children, 13-year-old Yi Mei and 9-year-old Yi Long were both born with mental disabilities.

Yi Long can’t talk. Yi Mei can only say one word and spends the day listening to music on a mobile phone. Their mother has just given birth to a third child, Yi Wu. It's too early to tell whether new born Yi Wu is healthy.China has promised to clear up its air and water, but in this province, industry comes before a cleaner environment.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children