Exclusive breast milk is the diet recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) until 6 months of age. However, breastfeeding has the potential of transferring certain toxic chemicals from the mother to the infant. Bisphenol A (BPA) is a synthetic chemical used as a monomer in polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins. Information on BPA concentration in the breast milk of lactating mothers is very limited; thus, this study aimed to determine the concentration of BPA in the colostrum of 64 post-partum women at a university-affiliated tertiary hospital in South Brazil. The results showed that all the breast milk samples contained a high concentration of BPA with a median value of 34.18 ng/mL. Furthermore, the concentration of BPA in mothers was influenced by the consumption of foods packaged in plastic packaging, especially when the plastic is heated (p = 0.0182). The total daily intake of BPA in breastfed infants was 19.5 µg/kg/day and 28.5 µg/kg/day was recorded at the 95th percentile of body weight per day, which is higher than the maximum daily intake estimated by the European Authority of Food Safety. These data showed a high concentration of BPA in the breastmilk of the lactating mothers which might be through the use of plastic containers as food/drink packages. This is of public health importance as the high concentration of BPA in their breast milk can be an indicator of potentially serious health problems in these mothers and much more in the babies breastfed with BPA-contaminated breast milk.
Keywords: Bisphenol A; Breast milk; Florianopolis Brazil; Lactating mother; Lactogenesis II.
© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.