ArticlePloS one2012
Towards prenatal biomonitoring in North Carolina: assessing arsenic, cadmium, mercury, and lead levels in pregnant women.
Article in PloS one, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 45 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
45 citing papers in PubMed, 74 citations in OpenAlex.
- Joint Associations of Prenatal Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances and Metal Mixtures with Adiposity in Childhood and Adolescence.Environmental science & technology · 2026Article
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- Prevalence of Exposure to Environmental Metal Mixtures Among Pregnant Women in the United States National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999-2018.Journal of xenobiotics · 2025Article
- Metal mixture exposures and serum lipid levels in childhood: the Rhea mother-child cohort in Greece.Journal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology · 2024Article
- Concentrations of potentially toxic metals and trace elements in pregnant women and association with birth outcomes: A cross-sectional study in Malawi.PLOS global public health · 2024Article
- Prenatal Metal Exposure Alters the Placental Proteome in a Sex-Dependent Manner in Extremely Low Gestational Age Newborns: Links to Gestational Age.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Article
- Metals and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances mixtures and birth outcomes in the New Hampshire Birth Cohort Study: Beyond single-class mixture approaches.Chemosphere · 2023Article
- Invited Perspective: Toxic Metals and Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy.Environmental health perspectives · 2023Article
- Non-essential and essential trace element mixtures and kidney function in early pregnancy - A cross-sectional analysis in project viva.Environmental research · 2023Article
- Associations of hurricane exposure and forecasting with impaired birth outcomes.Nature communications · 2022Observational
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- Maternal Blood Levels of Toxic and Essential Elements and Birth Outcomes in Argentina: The EMASAR Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Geospatial Distributions of Lead Levels Found in Human Hair and Preterm Birth in San Francisco Neighborhoods.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Domestic cats as environmental lead sentinels in low-income populations: a One Health pilot study sampling the fur of animals presented to a high-volume spay/neuter clinic.Environmental science and pollution research international · 2021Article
- Exposure to toxic metals and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances and the risk of preeclampsia and preterm birth in the United States: a review.American journal of obstetrics & gynecology MFM · 2021Review
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- Leaf ethanolic extract ofToxicological research · 2020Article
- Maternal Diet During Pregnancy and Blood Cadmium Concentrations in an Observational Cohort of British Women.Nutrients · 2020Observational
- Prenatal exposure to legacy contaminants and visual acuity in Canadian infants: a maternal-infant research on environmental chemicals study (MIREC-ID).Environmental health : a global access science source · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Exposure to toxic metals during the prenatal period carries the potential for adverse developmental effects to the fetus, yet such exposure remains largely unmonitored in the United States. The aim of this study was to assess maternal exposure to four toxic metals (arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), mercury (Hg), and lead (Pb)) in a cohort of pregnant women in North Carolina. We analyzed blood samples submitted to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services for blood typing to assess toxic metal levels in pregnant women (n = 211) across six North Carolina counties. Whole blood metal concentrations were measured by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. The association between maternal characteristics, including county of residence, age, and race, and metal exposure was analyzed using multiple linear regression analysis. A large fraction of the blood samples showed detectable levels for each of the four metals. Specifically, As (65.7%), Cd (57.3%), Hg (63.8%), and Pb (100%) were detected in blood samples. Moreover, compared with adult females participating in the Fourth National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals and guidelines for pregnant women, some women in the sample population exceeded benchmark levels of Cd, Hg, and Pb. Evidence from this pilot study indicates that pregnant women in North Carolina are exposed to As, Cd, Hg, and Pb and suggests that factors related to maternal county of residence and race may impact maternal exposure levels. As increased levels of one or more of these metals in utero have been associated with detrimental developmental and reproductive outcomes, further study is clearly warranted to establish the impacts to newborns.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.