BACKGROUND: Paternal exposure to mutagenic agents has been suggested to affect pregnancy outcome adversely. METHODS: A nationwide data base of medically diagnosed spontaneous abortions and other pregnancies and national census data was used to evaluate the effects of men's occupational exposures on risk of spontaneous abortion in 99,186 pregnancies in Finland. Census data from the years 1975 and 1980 provided information about the occupation, industry, and socioeconomic status. A job-exposure classification was developed to classify women and their husbands according to possible occupational exposures on the basis of their occupational title and industry. RESULTS: In 10% of the pregnancies, the husband was exposed to one or more of the mutagens, and the rate of spontaneous abortion was unaffected (OR = 1.0). Of the 25 specific mutagenic exposures evaluated, paternal exposure to four (ethylene oxide, rubber chemicals, solvents used in refineries, and solvents used in the manufacturing of rubber products) was associated with an increased relative risk of spontaneous abortion. In addition, the risk of spontaneous abortion was higher among wives of rubber products workers than among unexposed men. CONCLUSIONS: Although there is some biological rationale for the findings of this study, these findings need to be confirmed by studies in which individual exposures can be measured directly.
These results suggest a multi-system health effect of solvents. The laboratory data had some similarities with those in the metabolic syndrome. The screening and diagnostics of solvent-related conditions should be based on a thorough work history and a set of carefully selected laboratory tests. No single test seems sufficient for this purpose.
A cumulative case-referent study concerning selected exposures during pregnancy among mothers to children born with oral clefts has been in progress in Finland since December 1, 1977. The present study covering the initial 3.5 years' material can be regarded as a specific, more detailed extension of earlier retrospective studies concerning environmental factors in the causation of oral clefts, using material accumulated from the Finnish Register of Congenital Malformations. Information on exposures was gained by personal interviews with all the mothers. The analysis of different exposures and the classification of the material were performed blindly. Significantly more case-mothers than referent-mothers had been exposed to organic solvents during the first trimester of pregnancy (P less than 0.05).
KURPPA K, HOLMBERG PC, RANTALA K, NURMINEN T, SAXEN L. Birth defects and exposure to video display terminalsduring pregnancy: A Finnishcase-referentstudy. Scand J Work Environ Health II (1985) 353-356. In a test of the widelypublicizedallegation that exposure to video display terminals causes birth defects, interview forms of mothers of I 475 children reported consecutivel y to the Finnish Register of CongenitalMalformationsto have defectsof the central nervoussystem,orofacial clefts, skeletal defects, or cardiovascularmalformations and the forms of the same number of their paired referents were studied. The scrutiny revealed490 mothers with occupational titles indicating potential exposure to video display terminals. Of the 490, 235 were case mothers and 255 were referents. Then, unaware of the casereferent status, three members of the research team perused the mothers' interview descriptions of workday activities for information indicating exposure to video display terminals. Work with such terminals during the first trimester of pregnancy was ascertained for III mothers. Of these, 51 were case mothers and 60 were referents. The comparison of the mothers exposed to video display terminals during the first trimester with those not exposed at all showed a crude odds-ratio point estimate of 0.9 with 95 % confidence limits of 0.6 and 1.2. Adjustment for potential confounders by multivariate logistic regression methods did not materially affect the risk estimates. The results did not indicate a teratogenic risk for operators of video display terminals.
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