Factors influencing sex ratio at birth in Krosno, Poland

Abstract

The secondary sex ratio (SSR) is a widely used descriptor that reflects the living conditions and health status during pregnancy. The aim of study was to assess the impact of maternal factors, season of birth, and air pollution with the heating season on the sex ratio at birth in the Subcarpathian population from the Krosno district, Poland. A retrospective study involving 11,587 births was occurred at the John Paul II Podkarpackie Province Hospital in Krosno between 2016 and 2020. Sex of the newborn, the season of their birth, as well as the maternal age, birth order, the interval between births, and the season of birth were analysed. Furthermore, the relationship between the SSR and the level of air pollution during the heating season was investigated. To determine the significance of differences in sex ratios, chi-square analysis and multifactorial regression were used, with a significance level set at p < 0.05. At the chi-square level, all the studied factors indicated a statistically significant relationship with the SSR. However, the regression model used shows that maternal age and birth order were the most important factors in shaping the SSR in the study group.

Altered Sex Ratio at Birth with Maternal Exposure to Dioxins in Vietnamese Infants

“…The sex ratio at birth is widely used as an index reflecting alteration in the living environment and health status during pregnancy in terms of multiple factors such as paternal age and solar radiation, as reported in China by Jiang and Zhang (2021) [9], in the US by Sanchez-Barricarte (2023) [10], and in Poland by Nieczuja-Dwojacka (2024) [11]. As a marker of exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), the sex ratio has been used in epidemiological studies in Seveso, Italy investigating excess female births among offspring whose parents were accidentally exposed to high concentrations of TCDD, as indicated in serum levels [12,13].…”