March 2000, Volume 2, Issue 1, Pages 20 - 23

Article

Case-control study of maternal occupation as hairdresser during pregnancy and congenital defects MARÍA LUISA MARTÍNEZ-FRÍAS1, EVA BERMEJO2, ELVIRA RODRÍGUEZ-PINILLA2 & LUIS PRIETO3 1ECEMC and Dpto. de Farmacología, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain     2ECEMC, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain     3Dpto. de Bioestadística, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain     Correspondence to: MARÍA LUISA MARTÍNEZ-FRÍAS, ECEMC, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Complutense, 28040, Madrid, Spain. Tel.: +34-91-394-15-87. Fax: +34-91-394-15-92.

Keywords

birth defects;   case-control studies;   epidemiology;   hairdresser;   malformations;   maternal occupation

Abstract

Although there are previous papers on maternal occupation and congenital anomalies, there are no previously published studies specifically aimed at epidemiologically analyzing maternal occupation as hairdresser during pregnancy as a possible risk factor for congenital defects in the newborn. Using data from the Spanish Collaborative Study of Congenital Malformations (ECEMC), which has a case-control methodology, we have analyzed 15 different congenital defects in a case-control approach. The values of all but one of the odds ratios (ORs) are close to one and statistically not significant. Only the risk for choanal atresia is high, being 14.41 (p=0.002). However, as this is the first analysis of this maternal occupation, we should keep these results as hypotheses to be further tested in other populations since, at this time, we cannot totally exclude the possibility of an association purely by chance. Environmental Epidemiology and Toxicology (2000) 2, 20-23.

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