摘要：The presence of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in the fetal environment raises concerns
for their possible interferences with the developmental process, resulting into morphological
and/or functional impairments of the organism. Human biomonitoring has been widely recognized
as the action to be undertaken to characterize children’s exposure to environmental pollutants in the
different life stages, starting from conception. The main objective of the present study was to analyze
the relationship between concentrations assessed in maternal blood versus those present in umbilical
cord blood to evaluate if POP levels determined in maternal blood can be considered representative
of fetal exposure. Data on POP concentrations determined in maternal blood and umbilical cord
blood were retrieved from literature. Studies selected used highly specific analytical techniques, and
were published within the last 15 years. Our analysis involved POPs of high toxicological significance,
as organochlorinated pesticides, polychlorodibenzodioxins and poliychlorodibenzofurans,
polychlorobiphenyls and their hydroxylated metabolites, and polybromodiphenylethers. Linear correlations
between maternal and cord blood concentrations, expressed on a lipid base, were observed
for most of these pollutants. This result indicates a possible use of data on maternal blood POP
levels to quantitatively predict in utero exposure.
关键词：persistent organic pollutants, cord blood, in utero exposure.
