[Breast feeding, PCBs and dioxins].

In breastmilk of 14 Dutch mothers and 5 Polish mothers the content of dioxins and furans is measured. The study in Dutch mothers is started to relate the level of these xenobiotics to bleeding in the perinatal and late neonatal period. Interference with coagulation is hypothesized in analogon to phenobarbital. A relation is seen between bleeding in four babies and the mean content of 2, 3, 7, 8 TCDD (= tetrachloordibenzodioxin) (P = 0.02) in their breastmilk. This relation however is not found for the content of 2, 3, 4, 7, 8 PnCDF (= pentachloordibenzofuran) or the total amount of toxic equivalents. The fact that the prenatal gradient from mother to baby is different for T4CDD and PnCDF, respectively 2:1 and 10:1, may be an explanation for the dissociation between T4CDD on one side and PnCDF and total amount of toxic equivalents on the other side. Polish breastmilk was significantly lower (about four times) for dioxins and furans than Dutch breastmilk. This means that for these chemicals pollution in Holland is much higher than in Poland.