Are environmental pollutants risk factors for low birth weight?

Abstract

The aim of this study was to assess the association between prenatal exposure to air pollutants and low birth weight in a medium-sized city. An ecological study was performed, using live birth data from São José dos Campos, São Paulo State, Brazil. The environmental data were obtained from the São Paul State Environmental Agency. The study included full-term newborns whose mothers were 20 to 34 years of age and had at least a complete high school education, seven or more prenatal visits, singleton pregnancy, and vaginal delivery, in order to minimize potential confounding from these variables. Logistic regression was used to estimate the effect of each pollutant. Low birth weight was defined as less than 2,500g. The sample included a total of 2,529 data from 2001 that met the inclusion criteria (25.6% of the total). We identified 99 newborns (3.95% of the sample) with low birth weight, and the pollutants sulfur dioxide and ozone were associated with low birth weight. The final model was À(x) = -1.79 + 1.30 (SO2) + 1.26 (O3). Thus, sulfur dioxide and ozone were identified as risk factors for low birth weight in a medium-sized city in Southeast Brazil.

Children's Environment in Brazil: From Domestic (Indoor) to Regional Threats

“…V). A significant association between risk of low birth weight and exposure to pollutants was found, like PM 10 , CO [98,112,118], SO 2 and O 3 [107]. A research [108] also revealed a gradient of approximately 50% of increasing risk of early neonatal death with higher exposure to traffic-related air pollution, compared with those less exposed.…”

Effects of Ambient Air Pollution on Birth Outcomes: An Overview

“…As far as concerns this last issue, it is enough to say that the reviewed data derive from very different countries such as the Czech Republic (Bobak, 2000;Bobak and Leon, 1999;Dejmek et al, 2000), Poland (Edwards et al, 2010), England (Dolk et al, 2010;Lee et al, 2008;Rankin et al, 2009), Spain Llop et al, 2010), Sweden (Landgren, 1996), Norway (Madsen et al, 2010), Holland , China (Jiang et al, 2007;Wang et al, 1997), the United States (Bell et al, 2007;Gray et al, 2009;Maisonet et al, 2001;Morello-Frosch et al, 2010;Parker et al, 2005;Rogers and Dunlop, 2006;Salam et al, 2005;Wilhelm and Ritz, 2005;Xu et al, 2010), South Korea (Ha et al, 2001;Lee et al, 2003;Seo et al, 2010), Taiwan (Lin et al, 2004;Yang et al, 2003), Canada Dugandzic et al, 2006;Liu et al, 2003), Brazil (Gouveia et al, 2004;Nascimento and Moreira, 2009;Pereira et al, 1998), and Australia (Hansen et al, 2009;Hansen et al, 2007;Mannes et al, 2005). In addition, other sources of bias can be represented by the residential mobility of the pregnant women (Canfield et al, 2006), although some studies minimize or even exclude this issue (Hodgson et al, 2009;Lupo et al, 2010;…”

Association between maternal exposure to particulate matter and premature birth

“…This database was analyzed in two ways: unadjusted analysis: all preterm infants, without any selection or exclusion criteria; and adjusted analysis, with only those premature births by mothers between 18 and 34 years old, resulting from a single pregnancy, whose delivery was vaginal and whose mothers had at least eight years of schooling in order to minimize the effects of these potential confounders. This approach was used in another study (Nascimento and Moreira, 2009).…”