Abstract
As one of the most common complications of early pregnancy, spontaneous abortion is associated with environmental factors, but reports estimating the effect of ambient temperature on spontaneous abortion are still inconclusive. Herein, a case–control study (1002 cases and 2004 controls) in Nanjing, China, from 2017 to 2021 was conducted to evaluate the association between temperature exposure and the risk of spontaneous abortion by using distributed lag nonlinear model (DLNM). As a result, daily mean temperature exposure and early spontaneous abortion showed a nonlinear relationship in 14-day lag periods. Moreover, taking the median temperature (17 °C) as a reference, gradually increased positive effects of high temperature on spontaneous abortion could be found during the 4 days prior to hospitalization, and the highest odds ratio (OR) of 2.07 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.36, 3.16) at extremely hot temperature (33 °C) was observed at 1 lag day. The results suggested that high-temperature exposure in short times during early pregnancy might increase the risk of SAB. Thus, our findings highlight the potential risk of short-term high-temperature exposure during early pregnancy, and more evidence was given for the effects of climate change on maternal health.
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Funding
This research was supported by the Nanjing Health Science and Technology Development Project-Key Medical Science and Technology Development Project (ZKX21050), the Key Discipline of Maternal and Child Health in Jiangsu Province (FXK201756), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 81801445 and 82273637).
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SZ: investigation, writing—original draft preparation. JX: investigation, data analysis. WL: investigation, data collection. YL: investigation. LH: investigation. HX: investigation. MS: investigation. YW: writing—reviewing and editing, funding acquisition. QZ: methodology, formal analysis. QX: writing—reviewing and editing, funding acquisition.
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This study has obtained admittance from the Medical Ethics Committee at Nanjing Maternity and Child Health Care Hospital (2019-KY-034).
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Zhao, S., Xu, J., Li, W. et al. High-temperature exposure and risk of spontaneous abortion during early pregnancy: a case–control study in Nanjing, China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 29807–29813 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-24315-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-24315-8