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Published on: July 1, 2017
Persistent organic pollutants in matched breast milk and infant faeces samples
Measuring infant exposure to persistent organic pollutants (POPs) is challenging. Infant faecal POPs strongly correlate with breast milk POPs, suggesting faeces may be a viable non-invasive biomarker for internal exposure.
Area of Science:
- Environmental Health
- Pediatric Toxicology
- Biomonitoring
Background:
- Assessing infant exposure to persistent organic pollutants (POPs) is crucial for understanding health risks.
- Ethical and practical challenges exist in obtaining sufficient infant blood samples for POP analysis.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the feasibility of using infant faecal samples as a non-invasive biomarker for POPs.
- To determine if faecal POP concentrations correlate with maternal milk POP concentrations.
Main Methods:
- Pilot study involving ten mother-infant pairs.
- Analysis of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), and organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) in matched breast milk and infant faecal samples.
- Infants were primarily breastfed, with some also receiving solid foods.
Main Results:
- Faecal POP concentrations showed a strong association with breast milk POP concentrations in this small dataset.
- A potential influence of infant age or growth on POP levels was observed.
- Inter-individual variability in faeces-to-milk ratios suggests different exposure sources impact POPs.
Conclusions:
- Infant faeces show promise as a non-invasive matrix for assessing internal exposure to certain POPs.
- Further investigation with larger datasets is warranted to validate faecal POPs as a reliable biomarker.
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