title: Assessing a New Method for Measuring Fetal Exposure to Mercury: Newborn Bloodspots.
abstract: Measuring mercury in newborn bloodspots to determine fetal exposures is a novel methodology with many advantages. Questions remain, however, about its reliability as an estimate of newborn exposure to mercury.
  
  
  
  We studied mercury concentrations in paired bloodspots and cord blood from a convenience sample of 48 Minnesota women and infants.
  
  
  
  The limit of detection for bloodspots was higher than for cord blood (0.7 and 0.3 μg/L in bloodspots and cord blood, respectively) with the result that mercury was detected in only 38% of newborn bloodspots compared to 62% of cord blood samples. The geometric mean mercury concentration in cord blood was 0.6 μg/L. Mercury concentrations were almost uniformly lower in bloodspots than in cord blood (mean ratio (±SD) = 0.85 ± 0.4), their mean value was significantly less than that for the cord blood (p = 0.02), and the two methods were highly correlated (r = 0.82).
  
  
  
  These preliminary findings indicate that newborn bloodspot mercury measurements have utility; however, until bloodspot analyses are more sensitive, they are likely to underestimate in utero exposure.
authors.affiliation: Environmental Tracking and Biomonitoring Program, Minnesota Department of Health, St. Paul, MN 55164, USA. jessica.nelson@state.mn.us.
authors.forename: Jessica W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Nelson
authors.affiliation: Public Health Laboratory, Minnesota Department of Health, St. Paul, MN 55164, USA. betsy.edhlund@state.mn.us.
authors.forename: Betsy L
authors.initials: BL
authors.lastname: Edhlund
authors.affiliation: Environmental Tracking and Biomonitoring Program, Minnesota Department of Health, St. Paul, MN 55164, USA. jean.johnson@state.mn.us.
authors.forename: Jean
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.affiliation: Environmental Tracking and Biomonitoring Program, Minnesota Department of Health, St. Paul, MN 55164, USA. christina.rosebush@state.mn.us.
authors.forename: Christina E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Rosebush
authors.affiliation: Division of Epidemiology &amp; Community Health, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55454, USA. zsholmquist@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Zachary S
authors.initials: ZS
authors.lastname: Holmquist
authors.affiliation: Department of Preventive Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA. shanna.swan@mssm.edu.
authors.forename: Shanna H
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Swan
authors.affiliation: Division of Epidemiology &amp; Community Health, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55454, USA. nguyen@umn.edu.
authors.forename: Ruby H N
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Nguyen
mesh_terms: D059788:Dried Blood Spot Testing / Q000379:methods*; D004785:Environmental Pollutants / Q000097:blood*; D005260:Female; D005312:Fetal Blood / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008431:Maternal-Fetal Exchange; D008628:Mercury / Q000097:blood*; D008910:Minnesota; D011247:Pregnancy; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
chemical_list: D004785:Environmental Pollutants; D008628:Mercury
keywords: biomonitoring; cord blood; fetal exposure; mercury; newborn bloodspots