About the Massachusetts Center for Birth Defects Research and Prevention
The Massachusetts Center for Birth Defects Research and Prevention, which started in 1997, is a collaboration between the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the Boston University School of Public Health, and MassGeneral Hospital for Children. Beginning in 2014, the Massachusetts Center was funded to participate in the Stillbirth Component of BD-STEPS with the goal of better understanding risk factors associated with stillbirth and, ultimately, strategies to prevent stillbirths from occurring. The Massachusetts Center has experts in many research areas including congenital heart defects, limb deficiencies, gastroschisis and other birth defects, and in conducting health research studies of children and pregnant women, with a special expertise on medication use, nutrition, obesity and stillbirths with and without birth defects.
In Massachusetts about 2,500 pregnancies are affected by birth defects and approximately 285 babies are stillborn each year. The Massachusetts Center’s mission and vision is to support all pregnant people and families toward the best possible health outcomes; to this end, the Center conducts surveillance, research, training, and health promotion of perinatal health to inform fellow public health professionals, researchers, healthcare providers and the general public about perinatal health outcomes and prepare tomorrow’s researchers to carry the Division’s work forward.
The Massachusetts Center is a national leader in studying the safety and risks of medications and the effects of other possible human teratogens. Massachusetts Center researchers showed that medication use during pregnancy has risen steadily over the past 30 years. The effects of medications – whether prescription, over-the-counter, or herbal remedies – on the developing fetus are often poorly understood. As part of the BD-STEPS, the Center continues to develop and refine the tools necessary to conduct sound research on the effects of medications and other substances, like e-cigarettes, during pregnancy.
Team
Mahsa Yazdy, PhD, MPH
Mahsa Yazdy, PhD, MPH is the Principal Investigator (PI) of the Massachusetts Center for Birth Defects Research and Prevention and Director of the Division for Surveillance, Research, and Promotion of Perinatal Health at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Dr. Yazdy is a perinatal epidemiologist and her research focuses on how medications and environmental exposures during pregnancy impact the risk of birth defects. In her role as PI and Director, she oversees the Center’s participation in the BD-STEPS and sets the research agenda of the Center. Dr. Yazdy works closely with the two Co-Principal Investigators.
Martha Werler, DSc, MPH
Martha Werler, DSc, MPH is Co-Principal Investigator of the Massachusetts Center for Birth Defects Research and Prevention and a Professor of Epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health. Dr. Werler is a perinatal epidemiologist whose research focuses on the impact of pregnancy exposures on birth outcomes, including congenital malformations, fetal growth, and neurodevelopment. Her recent studies have focused on medication use in pregnancy, including analgesic, anti-inflammatory, anti-emetic, anti-depressant, and anti-epileptic drugs.
Eirini Nestoridi, MD
Eirini Nestoridi, MD is Co-Principal Investigator of the Stillbirth Component of the Massachusetts Center for Birth Defects Research and Prevention and she is the Associate Director of the Division for Surveillance, Research, and Promotion of Perinatal Health at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Dr. Nestoridi is a clinician scientist and her research interests include nutrition, metabolism, chronic medical conditions, substance use, genetic diseases, infectious diseases and pathophysiology of pregnancy outcomes.
Marlene Anderka, ScD, MPH
Former Principal Investigator
Marlene Anderka, ScD, MPH was the Director of Center for Birth Defects Research and Prevention at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and the Principal Investigator until 2016. She retired after 37 years of work in maternal and child health. Dr. Anderka played a key role in expanding the Massachusetts Center and served as the Principal Investigator and the Director for 15 years.
With BD-STEPS, we can address new concerns that arise. We can also use the data to confirm findings between exposures and birth defects found in other studies. Finally, this study brings leading researchers from several states together, which makes it possible to solve problems that no one researcher could solve alone.
Marlene Anderka
Allen Mitchell, MD
Former Co-Principal Investigator
Allen Mitchell, MD, was the Co-Principal Investigator of the Massachusetts Center for Birth Defects Research and Prevention until he retired in 2020. Dr. Mitchell was a Professor of Epidemiology and Professor of Pediatrics at the Boston University Schools of Public Health and Medicine, as well as the Director of the Slone Epidemiology Center at Boston University from 1998-2015. His research focuses on pharmacoepidemiology and birth defects and he has authored numerous publications in the fields of pediatric and birth defects pharmacoepidemiology.
Notable Research Findings
The following are selected examples of important research publications led by the Massachusetts Center.
Heinke D, Nestoridi E, Hernandez-Diaz S, Williams PL, Rich-Edwards JW, Lin AE, et al. Risk of stillbirth among fetuses with non-syndromic major birth defects. Obstet Gynecol. 2020 Jan;135(1):133–40.
Heinke D, Rich-Edwards JW, Williams PL, Hernandez-Diaz S, Anderka M, Fisher SC, et al. Quantification of selection bias in studies of risk factors for birth defects among livebirths. Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol. 2020 Nov;34(6):655–64.
Schrager NL, Adrien N, Werler MM, Parker SE, Van Bennekom C, Mitchell AA, et al. Trends in first-trimester nausea and vomiting of pregnancy and use of select treatments: Findings from the National Birth Defects Prevention Study. Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol. 2021 Jan;35(1):57–64.
Kerr S, Heinke D, Yazdy MM, Mitchell AA, Darling AM, Lin A, et al. Use of vasoactive medications in pregnancy and the risk of stillbirth among birth defect cases. Birth Defects Res. 2022 May;114(8):277–94.
Schrager NL, Parker SE, Werler MM, for The National Birth Defects Prevention Study. The association of nausea and vomiting of pregnancy, its treatments, and select birth defects: Findings from the National Birth Defect Prevention Study. Birth Defects Res. 2022 Sep 27;
Adrien N, Orta OR, Nestoridi E, Carmichael SL, Yazdy MM, National Birth Defects Prevention Study. Early pregnancy vitamin D status and risk of select congenital anomalies in the National Birth Defects Prevention Study. Birth Defects Res. 2023 Feb 1;115(3):290–301.
Petersen JM, Kahrs JC, Adrien N, Wood ME, Olshan AF, Smith LH, et al. Bias analyses to investigate the impact of differential participation: Application to a birth defects case-control study. Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol. 2023 Dec 15;
Petersen JM, Smith-Webb RS, Shaw GM, Carmichael SL, Desrosiers TA, Nestoridi E, et al. Periconceptional intakes of methyl donors and other micronutrients involved in one-carbon metabolism may further reduce the risk of neural tube defects in offspring: a United States population-based case-control study of women meeting the folic acid recommendations. Am J Clin Nutr. 2023 Sep;118(3):720–8.
Werler MM, Kerr SM, Ailes EC, Reefhuis J, Gilboa SM, Browne ML, et al. Patterns of Prescription Medication Use during the First Trimester of Pregnancy in the United States, 1997-2018. Clin Pharmacol Ther. 2023 Oct;114(4):836–44.
Darling AM, Yazdy MM, García MH, Carmichael SL, Shaw GM, Nestoridi E, et al. Preconception dietary glycemic index and risk for large-for-gestational age births. Nutrition. 2024 Mar;119:112322.
Contact
Principal Investigator:
Mahsa Yazdy, PhD, MPH
Director, Massachusetts Center for Birth Defects Research and Prevention
Massachusetts Department of Public Health
Phone: 617-624-6045