Fertility and female dietary exposure to persistent organochlorine compounds

Persistent organochlorine compounds (POC), such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) and dioxins, are long-lived and highly lipophilic compounds which are present in all biota today. In Sweden, one of the major exposure routes for POC is through the consumption of fatty fish from the Baltic Sea, which is off the east coast of Sweden, and one of the most highly exposed populations is the fishermen's wives and sisters from the east coast.

It has been suggested that the time elapsed between the cessation of contraceptive use and clinical recognition of pregnancy (the time to pregnancy) is useful to investigate a couple's fertility. Once a pregnancy is clinically recognised, reproductive loss can be measured by the frequency of miscarriages and stillbirths.

Self-administered questionnaires were sent to the fishermen's wives and sisters from both coasts, and information was collected on each woman's first planned pregnancy. From a subgroup of women, blood samples were analysed for CB-153, a biomarker for POC.

Among the fishermen's wives, an increased time to pregnancy was found for the east coast women (i.e. the exposed women) compared to the west coast women. The increase was due to a doubled time to pregnancy among east coast women who smoked more than 10 cigarettes per day compared to west coast women with the same smoking habits. Among the fishermen's sisters no effect was found from cohort affiliation. Among the east coast fishermen's wives and sisters, no indications were found of a prolonged time to pregnancy for women who had a high current consumption of fatty fish, had grown up in a fishermans's family and/or fishing village, or had a high concentration of CB-153.

No increased miscarriage risk was found for the east compared to the west coast women. Neither did a high current fish consumption, growing up in a fisherman's family and/or fishing village, or a high concentration of CB-153 imply an increased risk for miscarriages.