Birth weight, prematurity, gestational age, and birth defects were assessed in 239 children exposed during gestational life to the Love Canal neighborhood.
HAZARDOUS WASTE & HAZARDOUS MATERIALS Volume 2, Number 2, 1985 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., Publishers Pp. 209-223
Low Birth Weight, Prematurity and Birth Defects in Children Living Near the Hazardous Waste Site, Love Canal LYNN R. GOLDMAN AND BEVERLY PAIGEN Lyon Memorial Research Laboratory Children's Hospital Medical Center Oakland, CA 94609
Bruce
MARY M. MAGNANT Department of Anthropology University of New York/Buffalo Amherst, NY 14261
State
JOSEPH H. HIGHLAND Center for
Energy and Environmental Studies Princeton University Princeton, NJ 08544
ABSTRACT
Birth weight, prematurity, gestational age, and birth defects were assessed in 239 children exposed during gestational life to the Love Canal neighborhood and in 707 control children. The population living in Love Canal was composed of two groups; those referred to as homeowners who lived in single family homes and were predominantly white, and those referred to as renters who lived in a These two groups low income apartment complex and were predominantly black. were matched with comparable groups in the same city and a questionnaire was administered by trained interviewers at a neighborhood site or in the home. Mothers of exposed and control children were similar in socioeconomic status, smoking, alcohol consumption and medication use during pregnancy. There was no significant difference in prematurity, but the prevalence of low birth weight babies (
