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. 2005 Dec;113(12):1802-7.
doi: 10.1289/ehp.7894.

Organophosphate urinary metabolite levels during pregnancy and after delivery in women living in an agricultural community

Asa Bradman  1 , Brenda Eskenazi, Dana B Barr, Roberto Bravo, Rosemary Castorina, Jonathan Chevrier, Katherine Kogut, Martha E Harnly, Thomas E McKone
Affiliations

Organophosphate urinary metabolite levels during pregnancy and after delivery in women living in an agricultural community

Asa Bradman et al. Environ Health Perspect. 2005 Dec.

Abstract

Little information has been published about pesticide exposures experienced by pregnant women. We measured six dialkyl phosphate (DAP) urinary metabolites of organophosphate (OP) pesticides in 600 pregnant, low-income women living in the Salinas Valley, California, an agricultural area. A total of 28% were employed as farm fieldworkers during pregnancy, and 81% had at least one household member who worked in agriculture. Samples were collected twice during pregnancy (mean = 13 and 26 weeks' gestation, respectively) and just after delivery (mean = 9 days). As in other studies, dimethyldithiophosphate levels were higher than those of other urinary OP metabolites. Total DAP metabolite levels in samples collected after delivery were higher than in samples collected during pregnancy. Median metabolite levels at the first and second prenatal sampling points and at the postpartum collection were 102.8, 106.8, and 227.2 nmol/L, respectively. Both prenatal and postpartum metabolite levels were higher in these Salinas Valley women than in a sample of women of childbearing age in the general U.S. population (National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey), although the deviation from U.S. reference levels was most pronounced after delivery. Higher DAP metabolite levels in the immediate postpartum period may have implications for estimating dose during pregnancy and for exposure during lactation.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Total DAP urinary metabolite levels by days before and after delivery (n = 535 CHAMACOS women). The y-axis is truncated at 10,000 nmol/L, excluding five postpartum samples with higher DAP measurements. Prenatal data are shown for pregnancies with a known delivery date; 67 samples from 61 women who miscarried or dropped from the study before delivery are excluded from this graph. Delivery = day 0.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Total DAP urinary metabolite levels in the CHAMACOS cohort and NHANES 1999–2000. Error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals. Statistically significant differences between CHAMACOS sample and NHANES sample: *p < 0.05; **p < 0.001.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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