Correspondence on: Household use of crop residues and fuelwood for cooking and newborn birth size in rural Bangladesh by Lee et al

The study by Mi-Sun Lee and colleagues1 has investigated the risk of adverse outcomes in offspring on perinatal exposure to cooking biomass fuels in Bangladeshi women, particularly crop residue and wood-fuel, and reported an increased odds of low birth weight and a significant reduction in the gestational age and head circumference of offspring on exposure to smoke from crop residue burning. While it is an insightful effort carried out among a considerable cohort of 1137 participants, the quantification of exposure using only a questionnaire tool may have potentially obscured the estimation of the actual exposure and the overall effect size. Despite several epidemiological factors are accounted for, no information pertaining to the quality of antenatal care, including diet or nutrition during gestation and pre-existing and/or pregnancy-associated comorbid conditions of the participating women have been recorded or included in the analyses such as hypertension, preeclampsia, diabetes and other...
Source: Occupational and Environmental Medicine - Category: Occupational Health Authors: Tags: PostScript Source Type: research