Abbas Ali Mahdi, Jamal Akhtar Ansari, Priyanka Chaurasia, Mohammad Kaleem Ahmad, Shipra Kunwar, Sally McClean, Pratheepan Yogarajah
{"title":"A Study of Maternal and Umbilical Cord Blood Lead Levels in Pregnant Women.","authors":"Abbas Ali Mahdi, Jamal Akhtar Ansari, Priyanka Chaurasia, Mohammad Kaleem Ahmad, Shipra Kunwar, Sally McClean, Pratheepan Yogarajah","doi":"10.1007/s12291-022-01040-0","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Lead is a highly toxic element which can cross the placental barrier and enter the fetus during pregnancy. Parental lead exposure has adverse effect on infant as well as on maternal health. As part of our program to investigate the lead poisoning in human population we investigated the maternal blood lead levels (MBLL) and umbilical cord blood lead (UBLL) levels in 200 pregnant women and collected their socio-demographic details. In the study we found high lead levels in both maternal and umbilical cord blood samples. The results showed 47.5% maternal blood (<i>n</i> = 95) detected with lead while 38.5% umbilical cord blood (<i>n</i> = 77) samples had lead concentration higher than that of reference range of ≤ 5 µg/dL. We also found that the Spearman's correlation coefficient (rs) revealed a strong positive correlation between the MBLL and UBLL (rs = 0.63). The results from socio-demographic questionnaire demonstrated that the recent home painting (<i>p</i> = 0.002) and residing close proximity to traffic congestion (<i>p</i> = 0.05) were significantly associated with MBLL. Education, mother age, fuel and water sources were not significantly associated with MBLL. Iron and calcium deficiency along with tiredness, lethargy, abdominal pain were also reported in women having high lead level > 5 µg/dL. Concludingly, on the basis of results obtained it may be stated that we found elevated BLLs in both pregnant women as well as in umbilical cord blood. The prevalence of elevated lead levels in mothers will expose the fetus to lead through placental barriers mobilization and it can have long term adverse effects on the developing fetus. Therefore, it is recommended that screening of blood lead levels be carried out in high-risk women based on their social, occupational, environmental, and individual factors. In addition, stringent regulations on lead-based products are also required from government agencies/authorities to reduce environmental lead burden and toxicity. Moreover, public awareness programs should be organized on hazardous effect of lead.</p>","PeriodicalId":13280,"journal":{"name":"Indian Journal of Clinical Biochemistry","volume":"38 1","pages":"94-101"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5000,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9852413/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Indian Journal of Clinical Biochemistry","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s12291-022-01040-0","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2022/6/22 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"BIOCHEMISTRY & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Lead is a highly toxic element which can cross the placental barrier and enter the fetus during pregnancy. Parental lead exposure has adverse effect on infant as well as on maternal health. As part of our program to investigate the lead poisoning in human population we investigated the maternal blood lead levels (MBLL) and umbilical cord blood lead (UBLL) levels in 200 pregnant women and collected their socio-demographic details. In the study we found high lead levels in both maternal and umbilical cord blood samples. The results showed 47.5% maternal blood (n = 95) detected with lead while 38.5% umbilical cord blood (n = 77) samples had lead concentration higher than that of reference range of ≤ 5 µg/dL. We also found that the Spearman's correlation coefficient (rs) revealed a strong positive correlation between the MBLL and UBLL (rs = 0.63). The results from socio-demographic questionnaire demonstrated that the recent home painting (p = 0.002) and residing close proximity to traffic congestion (p = 0.05) were significantly associated with MBLL. Education, mother age, fuel and water sources were not significantly associated with MBLL. Iron and calcium deficiency along with tiredness, lethargy, abdominal pain were also reported in women having high lead level > 5 µg/dL. Concludingly, on the basis of results obtained it may be stated that we found elevated BLLs in both pregnant women as well as in umbilical cord blood. The prevalence of elevated lead levels in mothers will expose the fetus to lead through placental barriers mobilization and it can have long term adverse effects on the developing fetus. Therefore, it is recommended that screening of blood lead levels be carried out in high-risk women based on their social, occupational, environmental, and individual factors. In addition, stringent regulations on lead-based products are also required from government agencies/authorities to reduce environmental lead burden and toxicity. Moreover, public awareness programs should be organized on hazardous effect of lead.
期刊介绍：
The primary mission of the journal is to promote improvement in the health and well-being of community through the development and practice of clinical biochemistry and dissemination of knowledge and recent advances in this discipline among professionals, diagnostics industry, government and non-government organizations. Indian Journal of Clinical Biochemistry (IJCB) publishes peer reviewed articles that contribute to the existing knowledge in all fields of Clinical biochemistry, either experimental or theoretical, particularly deal with the applications of biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, biotechnology, and immunology to the diagnosis, treatment, monitoring and prevention of human diseases. The articles published also include those covering the analytical and molecular diagnostic techniques, instrumentation, data processing, quality assurance and accreditation aspects of the clinical investigations in which chemistry has played a major role, or laboratory animal studies with biochemical and clinical relevance.
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：
京公网安备 11010802042870号
