Stillbirths in relation to the coastline of Cumbria, 1950-89

The nuclear installation at Sellafield, in west Cumbria in the north of Eng land, has discharged radioactive waste into the Irish Sea since 1952. The o bjective of this paper was to investigate whether women living near to the coast in Cumbria had an increased risk of having stillborn children. A retr ospective cohort analysis was carried out using all 259 050 births (4017 st illbirths) to women normally resident in Cumbria during 1950-89, allowing f or year of birth, social class and birth order using (i) comparison of obse rved and expected numbers of stillbirths in distance bands relative to the coast, (ii) comparison of cumulative observed and expected numbers of still births by distance from the coast, and (iii) logistic regression analysis o f stillbirth risk in relation to distance from the coast. Comparison of obs erved and expected numbers of stillbirths in distance bands within 10 km of the coast did not provide evidence of an excess risk of stillbirth closer to the coast. The comparison of the cumulative observed and expected number s of stillbirths within 10 km of the coast supported this result. Logistic regression analysis of all births in Cumbria showed that distance from the coast did not significantly influence stillbirth risk (P > 0.05). There was no evidence to suggest an increased risk of stillbirth in mothers resident nearer to the coast.