SPINA-BIFIDA AND PARENTAL OCCUPATION

To examine the association between parental occupation and spina bifid a in offspring, we conducted a multicenter case-referent study in the Netherlands. Cases were children with spina bifida aperta from nine di fferent hospitals throughout the country; the referent group comprised population based referents who were randomly drawn from municipal bir th registries. All children were born between 1980 and 1992. We collec ted data using postal questionnaires for both parents with questions a bout occupational title, industry, daily occupational activities, and a number of potential confounders. We were able to include 353 cases a nd 1,329 referents in the analyses. We found increased risks for mater nal agricultural occupations [odds ratio (OR) = 5.6; 95% confidence in terval (CI) 1.8-17.8] and for cleaning women (OR = 1.9; 95% CI = 0.9-3 .9). For the fathers, we saw increased odds ratios for welders (OR = 2 .1; 95% CI = 0.6-7.0) and transport workers (OR = 1.4; 95% CI = 0.9-2. 1).