Desfechos relacionados à gravidez em áreas contaminadas, SP, Brasil

objective: estimate and compare prevalence of events related to pregnancy (pregnancy, low birth weight, premature delivery, spontaneous abortion, stillbirth, congenital malformation, and multiple births) in populations exposed and non-exposed to environmental contaminants in santos and s？o vicente estuary. methods: this study was part of a large project financed by cnpq, which aimed to estimate health effects associated with environmental area, contaminants exposure among individuals of the baixada santista region. this cross-sectional study evaluated two neighborhoods of s？o vicente near a contaminated area, and one neighborhood of bertioga, the control area. a structured and previously tested questionnaire was applied at 236 households in s？o vicente and 251 households in bertioga in order to obtain the data. the chi-square test or fisher's exact test were used to evaluate associations between area and qualitative variables; student's t test or two proportion comparison test were used to evaluate differences between variables; and a significance level of 5% adopted. results: there was significant association between living in bertioga (p = 0.01) and number of pregnancies in the past five years. in s？o vicente, 64 (28.3%) childbearing age women became pregnant whereas in bertioga there where 109 (38.8%). there were no statistical significant associations between living in any area and others pregnancy outcomes evaluated. conclusion: although no significant association was found, prevalence of low birth weight, preterm delivery and spontaneous abortion and prevalent odds ratio were higher in contaminated area. this study's evidence of a reduced number of pregnancies in contaminated area strengthens the need for additional more in-depth studies in santos and s？o vicente estuary.