Newborn Children Health Status in Families of Male Nuclear Power Plants Personnel

Purpose: To give a general description of personnel exposure doses and assess the health status of newborn children in families of male nuclear power plants personnel.

Material and methods: The work includes the results of studies of the reproductive health of male personnel of Smolensk, Kursk, Kalinin and Novovoronezh NPPs. The source of information on annual doses of occupational exposure of personnel was the data from the Federal Bank of individual exposure doses of personnel of organizations and the population in the territories served by the FMBA of Russia. The state of newborns was assessed by indicators of physical development and the frequency of birth of a child with pathology. Intrauterine growth retardation, congenital malformations, and other perinatal diseases were noted in the structure of pathological conditions. The source of medical data was information from the individual medical records “History of childbirth” and “History of the development of the newborn” for 2007–2018.

Results: The health status of newborn children born in 2007–2018 in the families of male personnel of the considered NPPs and in control groups did not differ significantly in terms of selected indicators characterizing the adaptive capabilities of newborn children to extrauterine life. The proportion of healthy children ranged from 60 to 73 % of their total number. In the structure of pathological conditions, perinatal conditions made the greatest contribution (from 10 to 17 %). The birth rate of children with congenital malformations did not exceed 34,0±8,9 per 1000 newborns and was significantly lower than the level adopted by the ICRP for calculating radiation risk (60 per 1000). There were no differences in the influence of the maternal factor (age and complications during pregnancy) on the development of the fetus and the health of newborns in the families of male staff and control groups.

According to calculations, the accumulated individual doses of occupational exposure of male personnel before conception of children did not exceed 30 mSv (on average) and for more than 95 % of the personnel – 100 mSv, which is lower than the exposure doses (above 100 mSv) when the negative consequences of exposure of men were reliably observed in the offspring in radiation-epidemiological studies.

Conclusion: No influence of occupational exposure on the health status of newborn children in families of male nuclear power plant personnel has been identified. At the same time, it is proposed to conduct monitoring observations of the state of reproductive health of a small group of male personnel of nuclear power plants, whose accumulated effective doses may exceed 100 mSv.