Dietary intake of dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls and birth outcomes in the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa)

Background: Maternal diet provides essential nutrients to the developing fetus but is also a source of prenatal exposure to environmental contaminants. Aim: We investigated the association between dietary intake of dioxins and PCBs during pregnancy and birth outcomes. Methods: This study included 50,651 women from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa). Dietary information was collected by FFQs and intake estimates were calculated by combining food consumption and food concentration of dioxins, dioxin-like PCBs and non-dioxin-like PCBs. We used multivariable regression models to estimate the association between dietary intake of dioxins and PCBs with anthropometric measurements at birth and fetal growth. Seafood is the main dietary source of dioxins and PCBs and is linked to beneficial effects on fetal growth. We conducted further stratified analysis by quartiles of seafood intake during pregnancy. Results: We found an inverse dose-response association between dietary intake of dioxins and PCB...