Abstract: Birth defects surveillance is an important part of the public health surveillance. It plays an important role in public health area，such as response to public health events， study on etiology of birth defects， development of relevant health policy， health resources allocation， and evaluation on the effect of public health intervention. The surveillance system is the foundation of data collection. In the present paper，we discussed some important issues related to the establishment and running of birth defects surveillance system.

Key words: Congenital abnormalities, Population Surveillance, Computer Systems, Surveillance System, Field Implementation