Light microscopic aspects of the rat placenta after chronic cadmium administration.

Female Wistar rats were injected daily with different doses of CdCl2 during the first 19 days of pregnancy. The placentas of highly exposed animals showed reduced weights as well as some light microscopic changes with respect to the amount of collagen in the basal membranes around fetal blood vessels and to the relative volume densities of the fetal blood vessels. These results are in accordance with changes, found in the placentas of smoking mothers, probably due to cadmium in cigarette smoke.