[Anesthetic gases and spontaneous abortion: a historical cohort study]

ABSTRACT

There are different opinions about the relationship between spontaneous abortion and women's occupational exposure to anesthetic gases. This study and other similar studies about women's occupational exposure seems necessary as more than 50 percent of women experience pregnancy during their working life. The aim of our study was to determine the association between rate of spontaneous abortion and maternal occupational exposure to anesthetic gases. Our study was a historical cohort. Two groups of married women were studied exposed group [women who worked in operating rooms] and unexposed group [women who worked in emergency department, ICU or CCU]. Data was collected through questionnaire and interview, and exclusion and inclusion criteria were applied. Pregnant personnel were followed till the end of 20[th] week of pregnancy. Data was analyzed using SPSS 11.5 software with frequency distribution tables, cross-tabulation tables, chisquared test, and t-test, and p<0.05 was set as significance. Findings: Spontaneous abortion rate in the exposed group was 15.7% and in the unexposed group was 13.4%. Chi-squared test showed no significant difference [p=0.529]. Odds ratio was 1.196 with a confidence interval of 0.685-2.090. Our study did not find a significant relationship between spontaneous abortion and occupational exposure to anesthetic gases, but avoidance of unreasonable exposure is rational using scavenging systems