Looking for effects of environmental contaminants in a large birth cohort: Summarizing results of the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa)

The Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) includes about 113 000 pregnancies, recruited during the years 1999-2008. Using information from questionnaires and biological samples, a major purpose has been to estimate the association between exposures to environmental contaminants and disease occurrence in parents and children. The intention of this article is to describe the available data in MoBa together with a short synopsis of some recent MoBa-publications that relate to exposure assessment and associations between toxicants and health outcomes. The majority of these papers display negative results, in the sense that no strong associations between contaminants and health outcomes have been found, whereas others suggest adverse effects. The positive associations between fetal exposure to contaminants and child growth and development will need replication in other cohorts and further risk assessment. Large prospective pregnancy cohorts remain an important resource for surveillance and detection of effects of environmental hazards on human health.