Fracking -pity the babies...A new study accepted for advance publication Birth outcomes and maternal residential proximity to natural gas development in rural Colorado. In this large cohort, we observed an association between density and proximity of natural gas wells within a 10-mile radius of maternal residence and prevalence of congenital heart defects and possibly neural tube defects. Environmental Health Perspectives. ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1306722/ Lisa M. McKenzie,1 Ruixin Guo,2 Roxana Z. Witter,1 David A. Savitz,3 Lee S. Newman,1 and John L. Adgate1 Author Affiliations close 1Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Colorado School of Public Health, Aurora, Colorado, USA; 2Department of Biostatistics and Informatics, Colorado School of Public Health, Aurora, Colorado, USA; 3Department of Epidemiology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA PDF Version (471 KB) | Supplemental Material (143 KB) Abstract Background: Birth defects are a leading cause of neonatal mortality. Natural gas development (NGD) emits several potential teratogens and US production is expanding. Objectives: We examined associations between maternal residential proximity to NGD and birth outcomes in a retrospective cohort study of 124,842 births between 1996 and 2009 in rural Colorado. Methods: We calculated inverse distance weighted natural gas well counts within a 10-mile radius of maternal residence to estimate maternal exposure to NGD. Logistic regression, adjusted for maternal and infant covariates, was used to estimate associations with exposure tertiles for congenital heart defects (CHDs), neural tube defects (NTDs), oral clefts, preterm birth, and term low birth weight. The Association with term birth weight was investigated using multiple linear regression. Results: Prevalence of CHDs increased with exposure tertile, with an odds ratio (OR) of 1.3 for the highest tertile (95% CI: 1.2, 1.5) and NTD prevalence was associated with the highest tertile of exposure (OR = 2.0, 95% CI: 1.0, 3.9, based on 59 cases), compared to no gas wells within a 10-mile radius. Exposure was negatively associated with preterm birth and positively associated with fetal growth, though the magnitude of association was small. No association was found between exposure and oral clefts. Conclusions: In this large cohort, we observed an association between density and proximity of natural gas wells within a 10-mile radius of maternal residence and prevalence of CHDs and possibly NTDs. Greater specificity in exposure estimates are needed to further explore these associations.
Posted on: Thu, 30 Jan 2014 11:42:07 +0000