title: Mercury exposure from dental filling placement during pregnancy and low birth weight risk.
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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-7475, USA. hujoel@u.washington.edu
authors.forename: P P
authors.initials: PP
authors.lastname: Hujoel
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lydon-Rochelle
authors.forename: A M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Bollen
authors.forename: J S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Woods
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Geurtsen
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: del Aguila
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D015986:Confounding Factors, Epidemiologic; D003793:Dental Restoration, Permanent / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007230:Infant, Low Birth Weight; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008628:Mercury / Q000009:adverse effects*; D011247:Pregnancy; D011248:Pregnancy Complications / Q000139:chemically induced*; D011295:Prenatal Care; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012307:Risk Factors; D014861:Washington / Q000453:epidemiology
chemical_list: D008628:Mercury