Polychlorinated biphenyl congeners (PCBs) in nursing primiparous and multiparous women

Sobia Khwaja, Rubina Mushtaq, Rehana Mushtaq, Masarrat J. Yousuf, Fozia Tabbassum

Department of Zoology, Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science and Technology, Karachi, Pakistan.
Department of Zoology, University of Karachi, Karachi, Pakistan.

DOI: 10.4236/abb.2013.411132                

Abstract

Impact of PCBs was studied as a major source of physiological effects even very low concentration of PCBs transferred to the infants by mother’s milk. Milk samples were collected from primipara and multipara women. A significant variation pattern was observed in the level of PCB congeners, as PCBs are lipophilic in nature, another possibility arises that great deals of residues are passed on to infants through mother’s milk. A technique was developed to find out polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) in breast milk. PCBs were extracted by Matrix Solid-Phase Dispersion (MSPD) and analyzed by Gas Chromatography with Electron Capture Detector. The precision (RSD < 10%, n = 125), recovery (85% to 110%) and limit of quantification (between 0.50 and 3.00 μg·L^-1), the chi square analysis at p ≤ 0.05 has shown that the PCB level was higher in multipara as compared to primipara. The analysis of the thirty samples revealed PCB levels above 6.85 μg·L^-1 in breast milk samples by analyses of a mixture of PCB congeners. All PCB congeners (28, 52, 101, 123 (+149), 118, 114, 153, 105, 138 (+163), 167, 156 (+171), 157, 180, 170, 189) were found at high level in primiparous and multiparous. Thus, a high correlation between the contamination of breast milk and environmental pollution of PCBs was observed.

Keywords

Poly Chlorinated Biphenyls; Primipara; Multipara; Breast Milk; Contamination; MSPD and ECD; Pakistan

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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