Hospital work and pregnancy outcomes: a study in the Danish National Birth Cohort.
In hospitals, women of reproductive age do a range of work tasks, some of which are known to carry potential risks. Tasks such as working with radiation, chemicals, and infectious agents, as well as performing heavy lifting or tasks requiring erratic sleep patterns have been reported to increase the risk of reproductive failures. Our aim was to study pregnancy outcomes in female hospital workers in Denmark. We performed a cohort study of 5976 female hospital workers and used as a reference group 60,890 women employed outside of hospitals. The reproductive health of hospital workers working during pregnancy is comparable to those of non-hospital workers for the majority of reproductive failures studied. However, an increased prevalence of congenital abnormalities was noted in some subgroups of hospital workers, which may indicate that some hospital work still entails fetotoxic hazards.
Suárez-Varela
María M Morales
MM
Unit of Public Health and Environmental Care, Department of Preventive Medicine, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain. maria.m.morales@uv.es
Kaerlev
Linda
L
Zhu
Jin Liang
JL
Bonde
Jens Peter
JP
Nøhr
Ellen-Aagaard
EA
Llopis-González
Agustín
A
Olsen
Jørn
J
D000328:Adult; D015331:Cohort Studies; D000013:Congenital Abnormalities / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003718:Denmark / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006282:Health Personnel; D006761:Hospitals; D006801:Humans; D016017:Odds Ratio; D011247:Pregnancy; D011256:Pregnancy Outcome / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015995:Prevalence