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. 2019 Jan 11;18(1):6.
doi: 10.1186/s12940-019-0447-9.

Prenatal exposure to extremely low frequency magnetic field and its impact on fetal growth

Yanfeng Ren  1 , Jianping Chen  2   3 , Maohua Miao  2 , De-Kun Li  4 , Hong Liang  2 , Ziliang Wang  2 , Fen Yang  2 , Xiaowei Sun  2 , Wei Yuan  5
Affiliations

Prenatal exposure to extremely low frequency magnetic field and its impact on fetal growth

Yanfeng Ren et al. Environ Health. .

Abstract

Objective: Studies on the effect of prenatal exposure to magnetic field (MF) on fetal growth is inconclusive and subject to some methodological limitations, particularly in measurement of MF exposure. The present study aimed to examine the association between maternal extremely low frequency MF (ELF-MF) exposure during pregnancy and fetal growth in offspring.

Methods: A total of 128 pregnant women were recruited at their 3rd trimester and asked to wear an EMDEX Lite meter for 24 h to capture daily ELF-MF exposure. Time-weighted average (TWA), P50, and P75 of personal 24-h measurements were used to evaluate prenatal ELF-MF exposure. The medians of these measurements were used as cut-off points of high and low prenatal ELF-MF exposure. Fetal growth was measured by infant's birth weight, skinfold thickness of triceps, abdomen, and back, and circumference of head, upper arm, and abdomen. These measures were conducted within 24-h after birth. Generalized Linear Model was used to examine the association between maternal ELF-MF level and fetal growth indices after potential confounders were adjusted for.

Results: Compared with girls with lower prenatal ELF-MF exposure, girls with higher exposure had a lower birth weight, thinner skinfold of triceps, abdomen and back, and smaller circumference of head, upper arm and abdomen in all three ELF-MF matrices. The differences were statistically significant for birth weight and most other growth measurements (P < 0.05). These measures had no significant difference between higher and lower prenatal ELF-MF exposure in boys except back skinfold thickness.

Conclusion: Prenatal exposure to higher ELF-MF levels was associated with decreased fetal growth in girls, but not in boys.

Keywords: Cohort study; Fetal growth; Magnetic field; Pregnancy.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The study was approved by the ethical review committee of Shanghai Institute of Planned Parenthood Research (SIPPR). The study was conducted according to the Declaration of Helsinki. The women participating in the study provided their written informed consent before the study was carried out.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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