Presence of melamine in human milk and the evaluation of the effects on mother–infant pairs in a cohort study

Abstract

Melamine contamination is a recent public health problem emerging globally. Present study aimed to detect the rate of melamine presence in human milk in a cohort study and to evaluate any possible differences in maternal–infant pair characteristics such as breastfeeding status, crying and sleep problems of infants, maternal postpartum depression, maternal–infant bonding, infant and maternal anthropometry, and maternal complete blood count caused by the melamine exposure. Mothers of infants born in Şanlıurfa were invited to participate in ‘Urfa Child Cohort Survey’. Overall, two breast milk samples were taken between 5 days and 15 days postpartum and between 4 weeks and 10 weeks. Randox Food’s InfiniPlex array was used to analyse the presence of melamine. Melamine was detected in 32.2% and 24.4% of the first and the second milk samples; 16.7% of mothers had two positive samples. z Scores for birth weight and z scores for height for age were detected to be significantly lower in cases with two positive samples compared to cases with negative samples. Mean maternal white blood cells counts were found to be lower in cases with repeated melamine contact. Melamine might have a detrimental effect on birth weight, infant height and maternal blood count. Further studies should be done to detect environmental contamination in different regions and countries.

Exposure to melamine and its derivatives and aromatic amines among pregnant women in the United States: The ECHO Program

“…Our pregnant study population's range of melamine exposure is below those in some studies (Lam et al, 2009;Liu et al, 2017) but similar to those found in NHANES (Guo et al, 2020). Additionally, our population is exposed during the prenatal period which could increase the risk for developmental effects in the children due to unique or heightened periods of developmental susceptibility and the potential for maternal-fetal transfer via the placenta (Jingbin et al, 2010;Wu et al, 2020) and breastmilk (Chan et al, 2011;Yalcin et al, 2020). Developmental exposure to melamine and melamine analogs could additionally affect other health endpoints as supported by animal studies reporting fetal growth restriction, incomplete ossification, and spatial cognitive impairments in animal studies (An and Sun, 2017;Kim et al, 2011).…”

“…Additionally, FDA issued a letter in 2008 to alert the food manufacturing industry, increased surveillance in food products, and developed analytic methods to better determine melamine and its derivatives (Kuehn, 2009;FDA 2021bb). However, such regulations are limited to food items and human exposure is still possible through contact with consumer products and the residues in the ambient environment (Shin et al, 2020;Takazawa et al, 2020;Zheng et al, 2020;Zhu et al, 2019;Zhu and Kannan, 2018a;b, 2019b, 2020ab). Other chemicals, such as aniline, o-/m-toluidine, p-anisidine, and 3-chloroaniline, were also associated with calendar year although the underlying reason is unclear.…”