Mycotoxin exposure and pregnancy

Abstract

Pregnancy is not a disease condition; it is a physiological process. However, the risks prevail until this process ends. While many pregnancies and births culminate without any problems, a considerable number of them end up with undesirable pregnancy outcomes such as intrauterine growth retardation, preterm labor, and low birth weight infants. Although the causes of these negative pregnancy outcomes are not fully understood, they occur in a multifactorial ways. One of the important issues here is the foods consumed by women with pregnancy. Pregnant women should avoid consuming fast food products, alcohol, or tobacco, which are already known to be harmful to human health, as well as harmful natural products containing mycotoxins. Mycotoxins are natural toxins with a wide range of chemical structures. While people can get these toxins directly from agricultural products, they can also be exposed indirectly through products of animals fed with contaminated feed. Mycotoxins have negative impacts on human health with their carcinogenic, teratogenic, and mutagenic effects. There are some evidences that mycotoxins can lead to negative pregnancy outcomes. These possible negative effects have been determined to be lower birth weight, neonatal jaundice, fetal loss, fetal defects, preterm birth, maternal anemia, and preeclampsia. However, more evidence is needed on this topic. This review aims to investigate the adverse effects of mycotoxins during pregnancy.

Keywords:

• Pregnancy
• pregnant women
• pregnancy outcome
• mycotoxins

Acknowledgments

The authors greatly appreciate all of the comments provided by the Reviewers and especially for Editor’s thoughtful suggestions. These have been taken into account in the revision of the manuscript.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors’ affiliation is as shown on the cover page. The institutions with which the authors are affiliated are academic institutions, and the authors take sole responsibility for the writing and content of the manuscript. The authors were compensated using internal institutional funds, no external funding was used to support the authors.