On September 12, a campaign for prevention of birth defects was held in Beijing. The campaign was co-organized by the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) and the China Disabled Persons' Federation (CDPF). It was sponsored by the Beijing Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning (BMCHFP) and the Beijing Disabled Persons' Federation (BDPF). Wang Guoqiang, vice-minister of the NHFPC, and Jia Yong, vice-director-general of the CDPF, attended the campaign and delivered a speech. Zhang Shikun, director-general of the maternal and child health department of the NHFPC, hosted the campaign.

Every year, September 12 is a day set to promote prevention of birth defects. In 2014, the NHFPC and the CDPF launched a nationwide week-long campaign with the theme of "birth defects prevention starts before pregnancy." They held a promotion in Beijing to provide people with knowledge of healthy births, with the purpose to improve public awareness and ability to prevent pregnancy risks. The campaign is also a move to improve newborn health.

Wang Guoqiang said that China is a populous country with a high level of birth defects. It has 900,000 birth defects cases each year, resulting in unhealthy babies and damaging the happiness of families. The health and family planning departments launched a number of public health service projects to prevent birth defects, including free pre-pregnancy health checks, supplementing folic acid for child-bearing age women to prevent NTD, neonatal screening and a pilot project to prevent and control thalassemia. All of these projects benefited millions of families. China's preventive measures for birth defects have seen good results, Wang said. Birth defects at the perinatal stage decreased successively in 2012 and 2013, while NTD incidences dropped remarkably.