[Occupational toxic exposure and the pregnant woman. 2: results of a prospective study of 100 pregnancies]

Many women of childbearing age are occupationally exposed to chemicals and concerned with the ensuing risk when pregnant.To present the results of a prospective follow-up study of 100 pregnant women and to discuss them after a brief overview of the published data on this topic.Since January 1996 the Lyon Poison Center has been conducting a prospective follow-up of all request concerning pregnant women occupationally exposed to chemicals. A thorough evaluation of the hazards of the handled products and of the actual exposure at the workplace is done for each patient. A toxicological advice is given and the outcome of the pregnancy is followed-up.One hundred pregnant women were included between January 1996 and December 2000. Based on the nature of the handled products, two groups have been identified: the first included 73 women exposed to organic solvents and the second 27 women exposed to miscellaneous. When the exposure was considered potentially hazardous for the pregnancy, either withdrawal from the workstation (19 cases), avoidance of certain activities (9 cases) or improvement of individual protective measures (29 cases) was recommended. In 43% of the cases, the occupational exposure was not considered hazardous to the outcome of the pregnancy. No increase of adverse outcome was identified: 4 miscarriages and 96 living births were observed, with 2 major malformations and 1 minor malformation.Occupational exposure to chemicals was not found to affect adversely the outcome of these 100 pregnancies.