Report on Global Monitoring Project Pesticide Research Laboratory ...

2. Expressing milk for testing may cause harm to mother and might reduce fertility this
suspicion was not limited to breast milk but testing of all bodily fluids.
There was generally also a high level of apprehension from the mothers even after they were
briefed by the nurses in charge at the clinic. Home visits were arranged for the mother who were
unable to attend the clinic.
There were also various challenges among those who participated in the survey. These problems
included:
1. Participants who took the samples bottles home them decided that expressing was too
much of a burden and could not continue.
2. Participants would agree to participate but would later discontinue as an older relative
usually the participant‟s mother or grandmother would discourage the mother citing
reasons relating to superstitious belief.
3. Some participants after agreeing for the samples to be collected at home, would then
leave the home for some unknown location and then could not located or contacted.
Sample collection occurred from mid November 2010 to the first week in January of 2011.
Sample classification was done as described in Table 1 below.
Location/ Description of
Pool
Table 1: Sample Classification
Number of samples
Pool
number/individual
samples
Rural mother 11 11
Vegetarian 1 1
Smoking/exposed to
2 2
smoke
Older mothers 14 1
Teen mothers 18 1
Second time mothers 3 1
Fish eater 1 1
Inner city mothers 15 1
Uptown mothers 3 1
Composite sample 1 1
Total 21