Beyond Expectation: Congenital anomalies of the abdominal wall and the lung: from fetus to child

Prenatal detection of a congenital anomaly offers the possibility of early parental counseling and of optimizing postnatal care. When counseling expectant parents, it is important to know how to interpret certain prenatal characteristics, and to be aware of the implications of the anomaly in terms of survival, hospital outcome, and long-term consequences.
Prenatal detection rates of abdominal wall defects (AWD; i.e. gastroschisis or omphalocele) and congenital lung malformations (CLM) are relatively high, but not so much is known on the long-term outcome of children born with either of these anomalies.
This thesis aims to improve the knowledge on prenatal characteristics and long-term outcome of AWD and CLM, with the ultimate aim to optimize parental counselling and postnatal follow-up.
We asked ourselves two general key questions:
• Can we identify prenatal characteristics that contribute to the prediction of postnatal morbidity?
• What kind of long-term morbidity is seen in these children?