1. Mercury exposure from dental filling placement during pregnancy and low birth weight risk.
- Author
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Hujoel PP, Lydon-Rochelle M, Bollen AM, Woods JS, Geurtsen W, and del Aguila MA
- Subjects
- Adult, Case-Control Studies, Confounding Factors, Epidemiologic, Dental Restoration, Permanent methods, Female, Humans, Infant, Newborn, Pregnancy, Prenatal Care, Risk Assessment, Risk Factors, Washington epidemiology, Dental Restoration, Permanent adverse effects, Infant, Low Birth Weight, Mercury adverse effects, Pregnancy Complications chemically induced
- Abstract
Several European countries have guidelines suggesting that women should not receive mercury-containing dental amalgam fillings during pregnancy. One concern raised by several studies is that mercury exposure during pregnancy may lead to decreased birth weight. A population-based, case-control study was designed to investigate whether placement of mercury-containing fillings in 1993-2000 during pregnancy increased the low-birth-weight risk. Cases and controls were sampled from enrollees of a dental insurance plan with live singleton births in Washington State; 1,117 women with low-birth-weight infants (< 2,500 g) were compared with a random sample of 4,468 women with infants weighing 2,500 g or more. The results indicated that 13% of a dentally insured population had one or more restorative procedures during pregnancy that, regardless of chemical composition, did not increase the low-birth-weight risk (odds ratio = 0.96, 95% confidence interval: 0.88, 1.05). The 4.9% of the women (n = 249) who had at least one mercury-containing amalgam filling during pregnancy were not at an increased risk for a low-birth-weight infant (odds ratio = 0.75, 95% confidence interval: 0.45, 1.26) and neither were women who had 4-11 amalgam fillings placed (odds ratio = 1.00, 95% confidence interval: 0.27, 3.68). This study found no evidence that mercury-containing dental fillings placed during pregnancy increased low-birth-weight risk. more...
- Published
- 2005
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