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Title: Residential Proximity to Roadways and Ischemic Placental Disease in a Cape Cod Family Health Study.

Authors: Wesselink, Amelia K; Carwile, Jenny L; Fabian, María Patricia; Winter, Michael R; Butler, Lindsey J; Mahalingaiah, Shruthi; Aschengrau, Ann

Published In Int J Environ Res Public Health, (2017 Jun 24)

Abstract: Exposure to air pollution may adversely impact placental function through a variety of mechanisms; however, epidemiologic studies have found mixed results. We examined the association between traffic exposure and placental-related obstetric conditions in a retrospective cohort study on Cape Cod, MA, USA. We assessed exposure to traffic using proximity metrics (distance of residence to major roadways and length of major roadways within a buffer around the residence). The outcomes included self-reported ischemic placental disease (the presence of at least one of the following conditions: preeclampsia, placental abruption, small-for-gestational-age), stillbirth, and vaginal bleeding. We used log-binomial regression models to estimate risk ratios (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI), adjusting for potential confounders. We found no substantial association between traffic exposure and ischemic placental disease, small-for-gestational-age, preeclampsia, or vaginal bleeding. We found some evidence of an increased risk of stillbirth and placental abruption among women living the closest to major roadways (RRs comparing living <100 m vs. ≥200 m = 1.75 (95% CI: 0.82-3.76) and 1.71 (95% CI: 0.56-5.23), respectively). This study provides some support for the hypothesis that air pollution exposure adversely affects the risk of placental abruption and stillbirth; however, the results were imprecise due to the small number of cases, and may be impacted by non-differential exposure misclassification and selection bias.

PubMed ID: 28672786 Exiting the NIEHS site

MeSH Terms: Abruptio Placentae/chemically induced; Abruptio Placentae/epidemiology; Air Pollutants/analysis*; Cohort Studies; Environmental Exposure*; Female; Humans; Infant, Newborn; Infant, Small for Gestational Age; Male; Massachusetts/epidemiology; Placenta Diseases/chemically induced; Placenta Diseases/epidemiology*; Pre-Eclampsia/chemically induced; Pre-Eclampsia/epidemiology; Pregnancy; Residence Characteristics*; Retrospective Studies; Stillbirth/epidemiology; Uterine Hemorrhage/chemically induced; Uterine Hemorrhage/epidemiology; Vehicle Emissions/analysis*

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