China has 900,000 new cases of birth defects every year, a report issued by the Ministry of Health said on Wednesday.

The high number of birth defects has become the second cause of newborn death in 2011, or 19.1 percent of all deaths, the report said.

Birth defects, or congenital disorders, include at least 8,000 kinds of diseases, such as congenital heart disease, cleft palate, hydrocephalus and neural tube deformities, and those are the most common among all the defects.

About 5.6 percent of newborns are affected by congenital disorders in China, which is close to the rate in developing countries worldwide, the report showed.