Cooking stoves and risk of congenital heart disease in Northwest China: A case-control study

Abstract

Congenital heart disease (CHD) has become the most common birth defect in recent decades. The aim of our study was to examine the association between stove cooking by women during pregnancy and congenital heart disease in their offspring. To address this question, we conducted a case-control study from 2014 to 2016 in Xi'an, Shaanxi, Northwest China, investigating 326 cases and 1071 controls. The cases included fetuses or newborns diagnosed with CHD based on the International Classification of Disease (ICD)-10. Controls consisted of healthy newborns without birth defects. Multivariate unconditional logistic regression was applied to analyze the effects of stove cooking before and during pregnancy on CHD in offspring. After adjusting for confounding factors, we found that, compared to cooking with gas stoves, electromagnetic, coal, and firewood stoves during pregnancy was associated with increased risk of CHD in offspring [electromagnetic stove (odds ratio (OR): 2.89, 95% confidence interval (CI): 2.02, 4.12); coal stove (OR: 3.94, 95% CI: 2.33, 6.65); firewood stove (OR: 6.74, 95% CI: 3.03, 15.00)]. Additionally, higher cooking frequency was associated with increased risk of CHD [total stoves (OR: 2.27, 95% CI: 1.57, 3.28); gas stove (OR: 2.38, 95% CI: 1.43, 3.95); electromagnetic stove (OR: 2.46, 95% CI: 1.32, 4.58); coal and firewood stoves (OR: 3.09, 95% CI: 1.01, 9.46)]. Our study suggests that using electromagnetic, coal, and firewood stoves for cooking during pregnancy and greater cooking frequency increased the risk of CHD in offspring. More attention to the choice of fuels in cooking by pregnant women would help to reduce the incidence of CHD in children.

Keywords: Cardiovascular abnormalities; Coal; Cooking fuels; Firewood.