Fig 1.
Flow chart of the total number of recruited patients, number of excluded cases and our cohort three subgroups.
AGA: Appropriate for gestational age; IUGR: intrauterine growth restriction; SGA: small for gestational age.
Fig 2.
Neonatal birth weights of the three groups.
Mean birth weights of the AGA (white), IUGR (grey) and SGA (dashed) groups are presented, significant differences in the birth weight of the AGA compared to the IUGR and SGA (p<0.001). Increased mean birth weight of the SGA compared to the IUGR group (p<0.001). AGA: appropriate for gestational age; IUGR: intrauterine growth restriction; SGA: small for gestational age; Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and posthoc test, *** p <0.001.
Table 1.
Demographic data of the recruited pregnant women.
n: number of patients; (%): percentage of the total; SD: standard deviation; BMI: body mass index; AGA: appropriate for gestational age; IUGR: intrauterine growth restriction; SGA: small for gestational age.
Table 2.
The detected levels of Cd: cadmium; Hg: mercury; Pb: lead, As: arsenic and Zn: zinc; in the (A) maternal and (B) fetal serum and in the (C) placenta.
AGA: appropriate for gestational age; IUGR: intrauterine growth restriction; SGA: small for gestational age; IQR: interquartile range; SD: standard deviation. Kruskal-Wallis and Mann Whitney test were used to compare the levels of Cd, Hg and As between the groups while Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and posthoc test were used for the Zn levels comparisons between the groups.
Fig 3.
Comparison between the detected maternal serum levels of Cd (A), Hg (B) and As (C) in the three groups of our cohort. AGA: appropriate for gestational age; IUGR: intrauterine growth restriction; SGA: small for gestational age. Cd: cadmium; Hg: mercury; As: arsenic Kruskal-Wallis and Mann Whitney tests were used. * p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001.
Fig 4.
Comparison between the detected fetal serum levels of Cd (A) and Hg (B) in the three groups of our cohort. AGA: appropriate for gestational age; IUGR: intrauterine growth restriction; SGA: small for gestational age; Cd: cadmium; Hg: mercury. Kruskal-Wallis and Mann Whitney tests were used. * p<0.05, ***p<0.001.
Table 3.
Fetal serum levels of Cd detected in the form of percentiles. Cd: Cadmium.
Table 4.
Distribution of the AGA, IUGR and SGA cases among the different categories of fetal Cd exposure.
Cd: Cadmium; AGA: appropriate for gestational age; IUGR: intrauterine growth restriction; SGA: small for gestational age; %: percentage of the identified cases; cat: category.
Table 5.
Fetal serum levels of Hg detected in the form of percentiles.
Hg: mercury.
Table 6.
Distribution of the AGA, IUGR and SGA cases among the different categories of fetal Hg exposure.
Hg: mercury; AGA: appropriate for gestational age; IUGR: intrauterine growth restriction; SGA: small for gestational age; %: percentage of the identified cases; cat: category.