Perinatal death and exposure to dental amalgam fillings during pregnancy in the population-based MoBa cohort.

Abstract

ObjectivesThe aim was to gain knowledge regarding the risk of perinatal death related to exposure to dental amalgam fillings in the mother.DesignPopulation-based observational cohort study.SettingThe Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study, a Norwegian birth cohort of children born in 1999-2008 conducted by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.Participants72,038 pregnant women with data on the number of teeth filled with dental amalgam.Main outcome measuresData on perinatal death (stillbirth ≥ 22 weeks plus early neonatal death 0-7 days after birth) were obtained from the Medical Birth Registry of Norway.ResultsThe absolute risk of perinatal death ranged from 0.20% in women with no amalgam-filled teeth to 0.67% in women with 13 or more teeth filled with amalgam. Analyses including the number of teeth filled with amalgam as a continuous variable indicated an increased risk of perinatal death by increasing number of teeth filled with dental amalgam (crude OR 1.065, 95% CI 1.034 to 1.098, pConclusionThe current findings suggest that the risk of perinatal death could increase in a dose-dependent way based on the mother's number of teeth filled with dental amalgam. However, we cannot exclude that the relatively modest odds ratios could be a result of residual confounding. Additional studies on the relationship between exposure to dental amalgam fillings during pregnancy and perinatal death are warranted.