ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTIONS |
Mercury Exposure from Dental Filling Placement during Pregnancy and Low Birth Weight Risk
1 Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
2 Department of Dental Public Health Sciences, School of Dentistry, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
3 Department of Family and Child Nursing, School of Nursing, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
4 Department of Orthodontics, School of Dentistry, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
5 Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
6 Department of Restorative Dentistry, School of Dentistry, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
7 Washington Dental Service, Seattle, WA
Reprint requests to Dr. Philippe Hujoel, University of Washington Department of Dental Public Health Sciences, Health Sciences Center, B-509, Seattle, WA 98195-7475 (e-mail: hujoel{at}u.washington.edu).
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.
birth weight; case-control studies; dentistry; estrogens; infant, low birth weight; mercury; pregnancy; risk
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