Association between cooking oil fume exposure during pregnancy and full-term low birth weight in Jiujiang City, China

We investigated the association between maternal exposure to cooking oil fumes (COFs) during pregnancy and the incidence of full-term low birth weight (FT-LBW). In this case‒control study, we enrolled mothers of FT-LBW infants (case group) and mothers of normal infants (control group) from Jiujiang City, China. After propensity score matching, 493 pregnant women were included in each group. Compared with those without cooking habits, women who cooked regularly during pregnancy had a 78% increased risk of delivering FT-LBW infants (95% CI: 1.31-2.43, p < 0.0001) after adjustment for potential confounders. Restricted cubic spline analysis revealed a significant positive association between the duration of COF exposure during pregnancy and the risk of delivering FT-LBW infant. Pregnant women who were exposed to COFs for 0.1-0.5, 0.6-1.0, and >1.0 hours/day had 51%, 70%, and 105% increased risk of delivering FT-LBW infants, respectively, compared with those who were not exposed to COFs, and the risk of delivering FT-LBW infants increased significantly with increasing exposure duration (p for trend <0.0001). Therefore, this study demonstrated that exposure to COFs during pregnancy was associated with an increased risk of delivering FT-LBW infants in a duration-dependent manner.