Parental consumption of contaminated sport fish from Lake Ontario and predicted fecundability

Wildlife studies suggest that consumption of contaminated fish from the Gre at Lakes may expose humans to polychlorinated biphenyls and persistent chlo rinated pesticides. To assess whether, time to pregnancy or fecundability i s affected, we conducted a telephone survey in 1993 with female members of the New York State Angler Cohort Study who were considering pregnancy betwe en 1991 and 1994 (N = 2,445). Among the 1,234 (50%) women who became pregna nt, 895 (73%) had a known time to pregnancy. Upon enrollment into the cohor t in 1991, both partners reported duration and frequency of Lake Ontario sp ore fish consumption. We estimated lifetime exposure to polychlorinated bip henyls from recent consumption and used a discrete time analog of Cox propo rtional hazards analysis to estimate conditional fecundability ratios and 9 5% confidence intervals (CIs) for fish consumption among couples with compl ete exposure data who discontinued birth control to become pregnant (N = 57 5). Maternal consumption of fish for 3-6 years was associated with reduced fecundability (fecundability ratio = 0.75; 95% CI = 0.59-0.91), as was more than a monthly fish meal in 1991 (fecundability ratio = 0.73; 95% CI = 0.5 4-0.98). Our findings suggest that maternal but not paternal consumption of contaminated fish may reduce fecundability among couples attempting pregna ncy.