Relationship between birthweight and occupational exposure to cytostatic drugs during or before pregnancy

Abstract

The birthweight of babies whose mothers were exposed to cytostatic drugs during pregnancy was compared with that of infants whose mothers were not so exposed. The study was conducted in four French hospitals and covered 420 singleton live births to 466 women. One hundred and seven of the 420 births were exposed before or during pregnancy; 298 were not. Information about exposure was not available for the other 15. The mean birthweight of the babies of exposed mothers was 85 g lower than that of infants of unexposed mothers, but the difference was not statistically significant (95% CI - 192.2-22.2 g). When gestational age and conventional risk factors were taken into account, the adjusted difference in the means of the birthweights was -56 (95% CI - 155.1-43.1) g.