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Title: Assessing a New Method for Measuring Fetal Exposure to Mercury: Newborn Bloodspots.

Authors: Nelson, Jessica W; Edhlund, Betsy L; Johnson, Jean; Rosebush, Christina E; Holmquist, Zachary S; Swan, Shanna H; Nguyen, Ruby H N

Published In Int J Environ Res Public Health, (2016 Jul 09)

Abstract: Measuring mercury in newborn bloodspots to determine fetal exposures is a novel methodology with many advantages. Questions remain, however, about its reliability as an estimate of newborn exposure to mercury.We studied mercury concentrations in paired bloodspots and cord blood from a convenience sample of 48 Minnesota women and infants.The limit of detection for bloodspots was higher than for cord blood (0.7 and 0.3 μg/L in bloodspots and cord blood, respectively) with the result that mercury was detected in only 38% of newborn bloodspots compared to 62% of cord blood samples. The geometric mean mercury concentration in cord blood was 0.6 μg/L. Mercury concentrations were almost uniformly lower in bloodspots than in cord blood (mean ratio (±SD) = 0.85 ± 0.4), their mean value was significantly less than that for the cord blood (p = 0.02), and the two methods were highly correlated (r = 0.82).These preliminary findings indicate that newborn bloodspot mercury measurements have utility; however, until bloodspot analyses are more sensitive, they are likely to underestimate in utero exposure.

PubMed ID: 27409626 Exiting the NIEHS site

MeSH Terms: Dried Blood Spot Testing/methods*; Environmental Pollutants/blood*; Female; Fetal Blood/chemistry*; Humans; Infant, Newborn; Maternal-Fetal Exchange*; Mercury/blood*; Minnesota; Pregnancy; Reproducibility of Results

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