Subsidies for pre-pregnancy health examinations this month would be expanded to married couples of whom only one is a Taipei resident, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday.
There were 15,193 marriages registered in Taipei last year, 964 fewer than the year before, Health Promotion Division Director Lin Meng-hui (林夢蕙) said, citing Ministry of the Interior data.
Among Taipei residents, the average age for a first marriage was 31.5 for women and 33.7 for men, while the average age for the first birth was 32.72, the oldest nationwide, Lin said.
To encourage births, the department has expanded pre-pregnancy health exam subsidies to include married couples who do not have children and with at least one Taipei resident, she said, adding that the maximum subsidy was NT$2,250, which involves NT$1,595 for eight items to be screened for women and NT$655 for five for men.
Chan Ching-chyuan (詹景全), director of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department at Taipei City Hospital’s Renai Branch, said that the city health department began offering the subsidies in 2010, but only about 30,000 couples underwent the exam.
Meanwhile, data from the exams shows that low sperm motility is a concern, Chan said, citing statistics from the health department exams.
Data from the past nine years show that 18.01 percent of men had low sperm motility, while 3.66 percent of women tested positive for chlamydia, 6.59 percent tested negative for the Varicella zoster virus antibody and 5.54 percent tested negative for the rubella antibody, Chan said.
While low sperm motility can affect conception rates, pregnant women affected by chlamydia, shingles — which is caused by the Varicella zoster virus — or rubella can pass the diseases to their child during delivery and are also at risk of miscarriage, preterm birth, stillbirth or birth defects, he said.
Women who do not have the antibodies should get vaccinated before planning to get pregnant, he said.
Pregnant women should maintain a balanced diet with sufficient nutrition, especially in the first trimester, because it is crucial to the development of a fetus’ neural tube, he said, adding that folic acid, iodine, iron and vitamin D consumption are especially important at that stage.
The department said it subsidizes fetal screening for Down syndrome for women whose household registration is in Taipei, while a government-funded genetic amniocentesis for pregnant women assessed as having risk factors for having a child with a genetic disorder is provided by the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
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