Mercury dental fillings seem safe for moms-to-be
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Pregnant women who are given dental fillings—even those that contain mercury—do not increase their chances of giving birth to very small babies, according to new study findings.
These results contradict long-held concerns that it’s unsafe for women to get mercury-amalgam dental fillings during pregnancy, due to the potential harm mercury may pose to an unborn child.
“We did not see any evidence that (silver) fillings had an impact on birth weight,” told study author Dr. Philippe Hujoel of the University of Washington in Seattle.
Hujoel noted that, ideally, women should get a thorough dental exam before becoming pregnant, to treat any problems ahead of time. “But if it turns out that you have a cavity during pregnancy, then get it filled, no question about it,” he said.
According to the World Health Organization, billions of damaged or decayed teeth are repaired with dental fillings each year. Many contain mercury, which research shows can cause low birth weight in infants, and problems in brain development.
Currently, officials in Austria, Germany, Finland, Norway, the UK and Sweden have warned dentists to not give pregnant women fillings that contain mercury, according to Hujoel and his team report in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
However, the most popular alternative to mercury in fillings is a resin-based material, which may cause its own form of harm by releasing estrogen-like substances that may also endanger a pregnancy, they point out.
To investigate if mercury-based fillings have any effect on pregnancy, the researchers reviewed the dental history of 1,117 women who gave birth to small babies, weighing less than 2,500 grams, or 5 pounds 8 ounces. The investigators compared them to 4,468 women who gave birth to normal weight infants.
Among the women included in the study, nearly 5 percent had received at least one filling that contained mercury during their pregnancies. They did not appear to have any increased risk of giving birth to tiny babies, the researchers report.
In fact, even women who received up to 11 filings during pregnancy were no more likely to have low birth weight babies.
Receiving resin-based fillings also appeared to have no effect on women’s risk of having tiny babies, the team found.
“The findings do not provide support to the hypothesis that mercury-containing dental amalgams placed during pregnancy affect birth weight,” they conclude.
SOURCE: American Journal of Epidemiology, April 15, 2005.
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