Hair trace metal concentration of pregnant women at term in comparison with blood and milk levels.

The concentrations of Fe, Cu, Zn and Pb were determined by means of AAS in the scalp hair (SH) and pubic hair (PH) as well as in maternal blood (MB), breast milk (BM) and cord blood (CB) taken from 104 pregnant women and their neonates. SH values of all studied metals correlated with strong statistical significance with their PH levels. Significant correlations were found between maternal Fe-PH and neonatal body length (r = 0.271) as well as between Fe-SH and placental weight (r = 0.168). The age of examined women was found to correlate negatively with Cu-SH values as well as with Zn-SH (P less than 0.05). The inverse relationship between Zn-PH and the parity of examined women was established to be statistically significant (P less than 0.001). The usefulness of hair analyses in assessing trace metal status of a pregnant woman is discussed.