RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BIRTH-WEIGHT AND OCCUPATIONAL EXPOSURE TO CYTOSTATIC DRUGS DURING OR BEFORE PREGNANCY

The birthweight of babies whose mothers were exposed to cytostatic dru gs during pregnancy was compared with that of infants whose mothers we re not so exposed. The study was conducted in four French hospitals an d covered 420 singleton live births to 466 women. One hundred and seve n of the 420 births were exposed before or during pregnancy; 298 were not. Information about exposure was not available for the other 15. Th e mean birthweight of the babies of exposed mothers was 85 g lower tha n that of infants of unexposed mothers, but the difference was not sta tistically significant (95% CI -192.2-22.2 g). When gestational age an d conventional risk factors were taken into account, the adjusted diff erence in the means of the birthweights was -56 (95% CI-155.1-43.1) g.