Maternal blood levels of persistent organic pollutants can be used to estimate in utero exposure

The presence of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in the fetal environment raises concerns for their possible interferences with the developmental process, resulting into morphological and/or functional impairments of the organism. Human biomonitoring has been widely recognized as the action to be undertaken to characterize children's exposure to environmental pollutants in the different life stages, starting from conception. The main objective of the present study was to analyze the relationship between concentrations assessed in maternal blood versus those present in umbilical cord blood to evaluate if POP levels determined in maternal blood can be considered representative of fetal exposure. Data on POP concentrations determined in maternal blood and umbilical cord blood were retrieved from literature. Studies selected used highly specific analytical techniques, and were published within the last 15 years. Our analysis involved POPs of high toxicological significance, as organochlorinated pesticides, polychlorodibenzodioxins and poliychlorodibenzofurans, polychlorobiphenyls and their hydroxylated metabolites, and polybromodiphenylethers. Linear correlations between maternal and cord blood concentrations, expressed on a lipid base, were observed for most of these pollutants. This result indicates a possible use of data on maternal blood POP levels to quantitatively predict in utero exposure.