Serum lead level in exclusively breast-fed Egyptian infants

ABSTRACT

Breast milk is the ideal nutrient for the newborn, but unfortunately also a route of excretion for some toxic substances including lead, mercury and cadmium. Very little attention has been paid to breast milk as a source of exposure to these elements. This work aims to determine the blood lead level in exclusively breast fed infants and in their maternal blood and maternal breast milk levels correlating these parameters with possible environmental sources of exposure to lead. Seventy one [71] exclusively breast fed infants were involved and subjected to clinical examination, questionnaire for possible environmental exposure, complete blood count, measurement of lead level in the infants, maternal blood and expressed breast milk spectrophotometricaliy. The mean infant blood lead level was 22.6 +/- 11 micro g/dl. The mean level of breast milk lead was 14.9 +/- 9 micro g/dl and the mean lead level in maternal blood was 21 +/- 12microg/dl. The infant blood lead level was high in 87.3 % of the cases with ' no correlation with maternal blood or breast milk lead levels, or environmental sources of lead exposure