Occupational Factors and Risk of Preterm Birth in Nurses

Abstract

Objective-We evaluated the risk of first-trimester exposures among nurses and the risk of preterm birth among participants of the Nurses' Health Study II.Study Design-Log binomial regression was used to estimate the relative risk (RR) for preterm birth in relation to occupational risk factors, adjusting for age, parity, work schedule, physical factors, and exposures to chemicals and x-rays.Results-Part-time work (<= 20 hours a week) was associated with a lower risk for preterm birth [RR=0.7, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.6-0.9]. Self-reported exposure to sterilizing agents was associated with an increased risk (RR=1.9, 95% CI = 1.1-3.4). Other exposures, including shift work, physical factors, anesthetic gases, antineoplastic drugs, antiviral drugs, and x-ray radiation were not associated with risk of preterm birth. Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.

Effect of psychosocial stress and physical activity on preterm birth: A cohort study

“…Work schedule and work exposures in the first trimester had a statistically significant association with PTB in the univariate analysis, although it did not remain significant in the multivariate analysis. However, there are at least two studies 48,49 that reported night‐work as a risk factor. Even though we assessed physical and chemical exposures and shift‐work separately, for the purpose of the analysis they were combined into one variable because of the inadequacy of sample size to analyze them individually.…”

Shift work and adverse pregnancy outcomes: comments on a recent meta‐analysis

“…These should have been picked up by our literature search, and we apologise that they were not. One of the papers reports a significant association of shift work with early preterm delivery (before 32 weeks of gestation), although there was no relation of shift work to preterm delivery overall (relative risk 1.0 or lower) 5 . The latter finding adds further weight to our conclusion that any effects of shift work on preterm delivery are likely to be small.…”

Occupational lifting and adverse pregnancy outcome: a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…For exposure category 5, ‘heavy lifting or ≥10 kg, ≥10 times per day or often’ and PTD, a summary RE of 1.25 (95% CI 1.10 to 1.43) results from the 13 studies19 29–40 of this combination (Forest plot in online supplementary file 10) and the final result from the seven studies with a high validity score is 1.24 (95% CI 1.07 to 1.43). These results are statistically significant, heterogeneity tests for the final result (Q=0.91, p=0.99, I 2 =0%) reveal good consistency and results of the six sensitivity analyses are similar (range 1.21–1.25) to the final result from higher quality studies (table 4).…”