Birth Defects Associated With Dads' Jobs

Date: Jul-18-2012The occupation of future fathers may be associated to a higher risk of birth defects in their infants. A study published online in Occupational and Environmental Medicine has revealed that the risk of birth defects in their offspring is higher if the father has a certain type of job.

Even though earlier studies have associated certain occupations with a higher birth defect risk in infants, they did not link certain birth defects to certain occupations, they rather placed the defects and occupations under one umbrella in order to achieve a larger sample size, leaving the results somewhat obscure.

The new study results were based on data that included the occupation of around 1,000 fathers from the ongoing US National Birth Defects Prevention Study, which investigates various potential risk factors for major birth defects in a large population sample. 
 
All men became to father to a child between 1997 and 2004 that had one or more birth defects, including defects amongst stillborn, aborted and live born babies. The team also surveyed slightly more than 4,000 parents of children with no congenial abnormalities telephone interviews.

Based on assumed exposure profiles to chemicals or other potential hazards in the job and within the profession/industry, the team then categorized the father's occupations into 63 groups. Considering that the three months before conception and the first month afterwards are considered the most critical for susceptible damage passed on in the father's sperm, the job categories were restricted to this period.

The researchers calculated and accounted for the statistical difficulties linked to analyzing small sample sizes in various risk category exposure and over 60 different birth defect categories by using the Bayesian analysis. The majority of fathers (90%) just had one occupation during this 4-months period, of which the most common type of job was in the management/admin, sales and construction industry. 
 

According to the analysis, almost one third of jobs were not linked with a higher risk of birth defects in infants, including the following occupation groups: healthcare professionals, dentists, firefighters, architects and designers, car assembly workers, fishermen, entertainers, smelters and foundry workers, stonemasons and glass blowers/cutters, painters, train drivers/maintenance engineers, soldiers, and commercial divers. 



However, some occupations appeared to be linked to an elevated risk of having a child with a birth defect in three or more categories, including computer scientists, artists, mathematicians, physicists, photographers and photo processors, landscapers and grounds men, hairdressers and make-up artists, food service workers, office and admin support workers, sawmill operatives, individuals working with petrol and gas and those working in chemical industries, as well a crane and digger operators, drivers and printers.

Specific types of birth defects were observed amongst artists, whose newborns were observed to have mouth, eyes and ears, gut, limbs, and heart defects, whilst the offspring of photographers and photo processors tended to have more birth defects in the form of cataracts, glaucoma, and absence of or insufficient eye tissue. Infants of drivers tended to have a higher likelihood of defects in form of glaucoma and absence of or insufficient eye tissue, whilst children of landscapers and grounds men were more likely to suffer gut abnormalities.

The study did not attempt to examine particular types of exposures to chemical or other potentially harmful hazards. The researchers conclude that their findings reflect those of other research on dads' roles in fetal damage and may be beneficial in further studies on specific occupational harms. 
 


Written by Petra Rattue

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