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Spontaneous Abortion in Women Employed in Plastics Manufacture
Author(s) -
McDonald Alison D.,
Lavoie Jacques,
Côté Rosanne,
McDonald J. Corbett
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
american journal of industrial medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.7
H-Index - 104
eISSN - 1097-0274
pISSN - 0271-3586
DOI - 10.1002/ajim.4700140103
Subject(s) - medicine , abortion , confounding , confidence interval , logistic regression , pregnancy , obstetrics , polystyrene , odds ratio , occupational medicine , occupational exposure , gynecology , environmental health , composite material , genetics , materials science , biology , polymer
An analysis was made of 193 current and previous pregnancies of women employed at time of conception in the plastics industry, derived from a survey of work and pregnancy in 56,012 women in Montreal, 1982–84. The ratio of observed to expected spontaneous abortions, corrected by logistic regression for seven nonoccupational confounding variables, was elevated (1.27), but not significantly (90% confidence interval [CI] 0.91–1.72), in women engaged in process work. The ratio was significantly raised (1.58, 90% CI 1.02–2.35) in women whose work included the processing of polystyrene. Nonsignificant excesses in women working with polyolefine (1.30) and polyvinyl (1.39) were present only when exposure also included other types of plastic; no excess was observed in women whose work did not include polystyrene. The number of women (17) exposed to polyurethane was too small for any conclusion to be drawn about this group.