BACKGROUND:
This study investigated the relationship between job type and the
risk for
spontaneous abortion to assess the reproductive
toxicity of
female workers in the
semiconductor industry.
METHODS:
A
questionnaire survey was administered to current
female workers of two
semiconductor manufacturing plants in
Korea. We included
female workers who became pregnant at least 6 months after the start of their
employment with the company. The
pregnancy outcomes of 2,242
female workers who experienced 4,037
pregnancies were investigated.
Personnel records were used to assign the subjects to one of three groups fabrication process
workers,
packaging process
workers, and clerical
workers. To adjust for within-
person correlations between
pregnancies, a generalized estimating equation was used. The
logistic regression analysis was limited to the first
pregnancy after joining the company to satisfy the assumption of independence among
pregnancies. Moreover, we stratified the
analysis by
time period (
pregnancy in the years prior to 2008 vs. after 2009) to reflect differences in
occupational exposure based on
semiconductor production periods.
RESULTS:
The
risk for
spontaneous abortion in
female semiconductor workers was not significantly higher for fabrication and
packaging process
workers than for clerical
workers. However, when we stratified by
time period, the
odds ratio for
spontaneous abortion was significantly higher for
packaging process
workers who became pregnant prior to 2008 when compared with clerical
workers (
odds ratio 2.21; 95%
confidence interval 1.01–4.81).
CONCLUSIONS:
When examining the
pregnancies of
female semiconductor workers that occurred prior to 2008,
packaging process
workers showed a significantly higher
risk for
spontaneous abortions than did clerical
workers. The two
semiconductor production periods in our study (prior to 2008 vs. after 2009) had different automated
processes, chemical exposure levels, and
working environments. Thus, the conditions prior to 2008 may have increased the
risk for
spontaneous abortions in
packaging process
workers in the
semiconductor industry.
ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY
MATERIAL:
The online version of this article (10.1186/s40557-017-0204-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.