1 Division of Health Studies, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Atlanta, GA.
2 Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina School of Public Health, Chapel Hill, NC.
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ABSTRACT |
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birth weight; gestational age; hazardous waste; maternal age; organic chemicals; tetrachloroethylene; water pollution, chemical
Abbreviations: ABC, ABC One-Hour Cleaners; CI, confidence interval; PCE, tetrachloroethylene; SGA, small for gestational age; TT, Tarawa Terrace
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INTRODUCTION |
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PCE is a common and potentially important reproductive system toxin (1). It is lipophilic (1
) and, in animal models, crosses the placenta (2
). Trichloroacetic acid, a toxic metabolite of PCE, has been observed to persist in the rat fetus and may cycle from the fetus into the amniotic fluid and back again (2
). PCE exposure has been found to reduce weight and delay development in fetal mice but not in fetal rats (3
).
Although a number of studies have linked spontaneous abortion in humans with occupational exposure to solvents or employment in the dry-cleaning industry (47
), two studies of occupational exposure to halogenated hydrocarbons did not observe associations with SGA, preterm delivery, or both (5
, 8
). In the single known previous study of PCE-contaminated drinking water and birth outcomes, PCE contamination at 10 ppb or more was associated with oral cleft defects but not with mean birth weight, SGA, or preterm delivery (9
). Chloroform and trichloroethylene, two compounds chemically similar to PCE, have been more frequently studied in contaminated drinking water. Chloroform contamination at 50 ppb or more has been associated with SGA in some studies (9
11
) but not others (12
, 13
). One study found that trichloroethylene exposure (6267 ppb) during the third trimester of pregnancy was associated with SGA (14
); a study of lower-level exposure to trichloroethylene (10 ppb or more) revealed no association with SGA (9
).
Tarawa Terrace (TT) housing areas I and II are 2 of 15 housing areas for Navy and Marine Corps families stationed at the US Marine Corps Base at Camp Lejeune. Both receive water from the same water distribution system. As shown in table 1, drinking water supplied to TT contained PCE and lower levels of other volatile organic compounds (15, 16
). The source of the volatile organic compounds was the ABC One-Hour Cleaners (ABC), a dry-cleaning business. PCE was released to the ABC septic system via a floor drain during routine storage, use, and recycling. The septic system discharged wastewater directly into subsurface soil. Supply well 26 (TT26) is located approximately 850 feet (259 m) from this septic field. Although TT26 is up-gradient of ABC, its cone of depression included the septic field.
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TT26 was the only one of six routinely used wells with detectable contamination. On any given day, use of five of the wells was essentially random. Therefore, exposure over time was intermittent and fluctuated depending on the proportion of water pumped from the contaminated well each day. PCE concentrations in finished water samples were consistent with what might be expected if water from TT26 had been diluted with a similar volume of water from four other wells.
A notable characteristic of the water distribution systems at Camp Lejeune is that all supply wells for a given system were mixed before distribution. Therefore, PCE concentrations were not related to the distance between particular housing units and TT26. Because the water was mixed prior to distribution, we expected that PCE concentrations in water delivered to each TT housing unit would have been similar on any given day (15).
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MATERIALS AND METHODS |
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Birth certificates were matched to base family housing records on mother's address and, in most cases, father's name. Housing records contained dates of occupancy and military pay grade for the family member assigned to the unit. Births to mothers who were living in base family housing when they delivered and who had lived there for at least 1 week prior to giving birth were included. TT residents were considered PCE exposed. Two groups of residents were exposed to trichloroethylene through a different water system and were excluded. Residents of base trailer parks were excluded because housing records were incomplete. The remaining base family housing residents were classified as unexposed based on water samples drawn from supply wells and finished distribution systems in 1984 and 1985.
Mean birth weight, SGA, and preterm birth were measured by using North Carolina birth records. We excluded less than 5 percent of the exposed and unexposed groups because of poor data quality. Premature births were defined as livebirths occurring at less than 37 completed weeks of gestation. Gestational age was calculated from the mother's last menstrual period. Approximately 1 percent of observations were deleted from the mean birth weight and SGA analysis, but not from the preterm birth analyses, because of extremely unlikely combinations of gestational age and birth weight (17); all of these observations were for preterm births. Twelve "preterm births" of infants weighing 3,600 g or more were recoded as full-term.
SGA is normally measured by comparing birth weight at specific gestational ages with a gestational-age-specific birth-weight distribution. Livebirths of infants weighing less than the 10th percentile are classified as SGA. Given the military's somewhat unique social and health care environment, we would ideally have used a standard birth-weight distribution for a military population during the years of study. Because such a standard was not available, we evaluated three different standards (9, 17
, 18
) and selected the one published by Williams et al. (18
) because it came closest to classifying 10 percent of the non-PCE-exposed births as SGA. Of the three standards evaluated, this was the only one derived specifically from White births, but, when all races were included, it fit best.
Mean differences or odds ratios and 90 percent confidence intervals were computed. The covariates included in simple stratified analyses were infant's sex and year of birth; mother's race, age, educational level, parity, adequacy of prenatal care (19), marital status, and history of fetal death; and father's age, educational level, and military pay grade. Variable selection in regression models proceeded by backward elimination. Initial models considered main effects only, treating covariates as potential confounders. Subsequently, effect modification was also considered. For the analyses of SGA and preterm birth, covariates were retained as effect modifiers in regression models only if they were biologically plausible, described heterogeneous groups in which the odds ratios differed by more than 25 percent, and had p values of less than 0.20 (20
, 21
). For mean birth weight, covariates for which at least one stratum-specific estimate showed a mean difference between PCE-exposed and unexposed births of at least 50 g were examined for effect modification.
We adjusted for gestational age in mean birth-weight analyses to distinguish between associations with reduced fetal weight gain and those with early time of birth; failure to make this distinction can obscure associations between exposure to hazardous waste and delayed fetal growth (10, 22
).
The influence of duration of exposure was also explored. For each household, the dates of occupancy were used to determine whether and when each family moved during the mother's pregnancy. Length of residence at TT prior to giving birth served as a surrogate for length of exposure. Following analysis of a sample of housing records, we assumed that length of exposure indicated the number of consecutive weeks prior to delivery that a mother lived at TT. For example, a mother residing at TT for 10 weeks lived at TT during the last 10 weeks of the pregnancy. Cutpoints for duration of exposure analyses were developed following a literature review to identify periods during gestation when a toxic agent might most interfere with fetal growth or timing of birth.
In the absence of more refined historical information, we assumed that PCE exposures were essentially constant throughout the years of study. However, we also conducted separate analyses of births occurring during the period of documented exposureMay 27, 1982, through February 7, 1985.
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RESULTS |
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Table 3 examines birth outcomes by length of exposure to PCE. Associations between PCE exposure and mean birth weight, SGA, and preterm birth followed no obvious pattern with duration of exposure.
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When analyses were restricted to births in the period of documented exposure, the results did not change meaningfully. When all births in this time period were considered, the difference in mean birth weight was -23 g (90 percent CI: -72, 27), and the odds ratios for PCE exposure and SGA and preterm delivery were 1.5 (90 percent CI: 1.0, 2.2) and 0.9 (90 percent CI: 0.6, 1.3) respectively. Our study sample was too small to examine interaction during the period of documented exposure. However, when we restricted analyses to infants whose mothers were 34 years of age or younger, the difference in mean birth weight was 6 g (90 percent CI: -50, 61), and the odds ratio for SGA was reduced to 1.2 (90 percent CI: 0.8, 1.8). The odds ratio for preterm delivery was 1.0 (90 percent CI: 0.6, 1.6). Analyses for this time period were adjusted for mother's race and educational level and for pay grade. Mean birth-weight analyses were also adjusted for gestational age.
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DISCUSSION |
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The observation of at most a very weak effect for most infants must be tempered by an assessment of potential biases. Some potentially important confounders, such as maternal smoking habits and height, were not controlled. It seems unlikely that these factors could have totally obscured a strong effect, especially in a population as homogeneous as the one studied.
Misclassification of exposure is a chronic problem in environmental epidemiology. In this study, water quality data were available for less than a 3-year period, although the study examined 28 years of birth-outcome data. However, the circumstances that led to the contamination were present throughout the study period. Moreover, to the limited extent that we could assess them, the results of analyses conducted during the period of known exposure were consistent with those for the entire study period.
Other sources of misclassification were likely to have been more relevant. Even during the known exposure period, exposure was intermittent. Nonetheless, given the practice of rotating use of wells, exposure probably occurred during a majority of the days in every month of the study period. The amount of exposure to PCE varied across the different persons studied, because women would have drunk different quantities of water and would have spent variable amounts of time showering. Unfortunately, we lacked information on variations in the personal habits of individual women. It is expected that these sources of misclassification would have reduced our ability to detect exposure-related effects. Extensive misclassification of exposure may also explain why analyses by duration of exposure yielded no additional insights.
There were two distinct groups, mothers aged 35 years or older and mothers with histories of fetal deaths, in which PCE exposure was associated with reduced fetal weight. These groups had limited overlap and seem to reflect two different associations. Limitations of the subgroup analyses include small sample sizes and the potential for residual confounding by socioeconomic status or confounding by unmeasured variables such as cigarette smoking. These issues are especially acute for older mothers.
Birth certificates do not enable distinction between prior spontaneous abortions, induced abortions, and stillbirths. Even among women who lost fetuses at similar gestational ages, there is considerable variability in baseline loss rates (2325
). Therefore, mothers with histories of prior pregnancy loss could represent a heterogeneous group in which PCE exposure rendered some, but not all, mothers with previous fetal loss more susceptible to delivering an SGA infant.
The subgroup associations observed between PCE exposure and adverse outcomes are biologically plausible. Mothers aged 35 years or older are at higher risk for infertility, miscarriage, and chromosomal anomalies (26). Older maternal age is not always associated with decreased mean birth weight and increased SGA births (27
), but a number of risk factors for SGA such as preeclampsia, pregnancy-induced hypertension, and chromosomal defects are associated with older maternal age (28
30
). The effects of maternal smoking on birth weight have been observed to increase with age (31
33
). As with older mothers, women with a history of fetal loss, especially late fetal loss, might represent a physiologically susceptible subgroup with poorer pregnancy outcomes than women without such a history (34
, 35
). Notably, young maternal age and maternal race are established maternal risk factors for SGA and were not effect modifiers of PCE in this study. Hence, simply being at high risk does not explain the interactions.
One potential mechanism for reproductive effects of PCE is central nervous system depression of the hypothalamus or pituitary glands resulting in hormonal changes in the mother, the fetus, or both (3638
). Hormonal changes associated with the onset of menopause occur primarily in women in their forties (39
). However, early menopausal changes such as increasing within-woman variation in menstrual cycle length have been observed in a substantial proportion of women aged 3539 years (40
, 41
). In addition, an increase in chromosomally normal spontaneous abortions has been noted among women 37 years of age or older, an effect that might be related to a decline in uterine function at this age (42
). In our study population, older women and women with a history of fetal death were distinct groups, but a changing hormonal environment or decreased uterine or placental function might have played a role in both risk groups.
As noted above, caution is needed when interpreting the findings regarding interaction. Nonetheless, if these interactions are observed in other populations, they may characterize fetuses that are especially vulnerable to reproductive system toxins.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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NOTES |
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REFERENCES |
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