The Effects of Urban Living on Child, Infant, and Maternal Health: A Comparative Study of Linear Enamel Hypoplasia Between Two Dutch Postmedieval Populations

Abstract

Substantial research has been done assessing health inequalities between rural and urban contexts in the low countries; however, fewer studies have considered the effect of urban living on non-adults. Because dental enamel does not remodel, recording the time of dental stress insults in both deciduous and permanent teeth allows for the analysis of episodes of stress, including those occurring during the fetal period. Thus, through the analysis of dental stress markers, we can provide information about child, infant, and maternal health inequalities between urban and rural contexts. To do this, we recorded the frequency and age at formation of linear enamel hypoplasia in both permanent and deciduous teeth of 177 individuals between 0 and 35 years of age from two Dutch postmedieval sites; 64 from the city of Arnhem (1650–1829 ce) and 113 from the rural cemetery of Middenbeemster (1623–1867 ce). Results from this research reveal that urban living during Dutch postmedieval times had a negative impact specifically on infants and their gestating mothers, as deciduous teeth from urban Arnhem presented a significantly higher frequency of LEH compared with their rural counterparts (p = 0.009). However, no significant difference was found on permanent teeth between sites (p = 0.868), showing that during the following years of life (3–6), urban life did not appear to have a greater negative impact compared with rural life.