Arsenic Toxicity and Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes: An Insight from West Bengal, India

The health problems due to consumption of arsenic-contaminated water are a serious public health concern in West Bengal. There is extensive documentation of reproductive and fetal developmental effects due to arsenic exposure in animal species with only a handful examining the same in case of human pregnancy outcomes. This paper examines the adverse pregnancy outcomes (in terms of live births, stillbirths, spontaneous abortions and preterm births) of women both in the exposed (drinking arsenic-contaminated water at the level of ≥0.05 mg/L for at least five years) and non-exposed groups (drinking arsenic-safe water at the level of ≤0.01 mg/L). A cross-sectional case-control study was conducted in Murshidabad district, West Bengal. Eligible participants included ever-married women of reproductive age 15-49 years and who previously had at least one pregnancy. In the exposed and non-exposed groups, respectively, 87 percent and 94 percent of the pregnancies ended as live births; the difference was statistically significant (z = 3.2; p = 0.002). Adverse pregnancy outcomes measured as spontaneous abortion, stillbirth and preterm birth rates were 73.4, 62.3, and 81.8 per 1000 live births, respectively, among the exposed group and 34.0, 24.0, and 37.2 per 1000 pregnancies, respectively, among the non-exposed group.