This is a hospital based prospective study of 12080 newborn delivered in Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences, Ranchi, a tertiary care centre situated in tribal dominated region of eastern India from January 2014 to September 2015.

The incidence of various birth defects in 12080 consecutive births was 15.7 per thousand. The sex ratio of congenital malformed births was 1.37:1 being higher in male (9.10 per thousand) than female (6.62 per thousand). System wise distribution of congenital malformations was: a) Central nervous system (6.45/ per thousand) being the highest, followed by musculoskeletal system (3.47/per thousand) and others. Distribution of birth defects affecting CNS was: 1.Meningomyelocele (2.06 per thousand) 2. Menigocele(1.65 per thousand) 3.Hydrocephalus (1.57 per thousand) 4. Encephalocele (0.49 per thousand) 5.Microcephaly (0.41 per thousand) 5. Spina Bifida Occulta (0.24 per thousand).  The incidence of Birth defects in newborn weighing less than 2.5 kg was 3.39 per thousand and among more 2.5 kg was 13.32 per thousand respectively. CNS anomalies among tribal community was birth 4.63 per thousand.