Micronutrient composition and the presence of nutrients: Pollutants in mother's milk from rural and urban environment

Mother's milk is the universal and the best complete food for the first 4 to 6 months of a newborn's life. Its mineral content is shown to be relatively stable. Several studies have been and are carried out concerning breast milk composition in different parts of the world. The amount of chemical pollutants in breast milk is shown to be rising, becoming a matter of concern. Pesticides are found to be excreted in appreciable amounts in human milk. This could be toxic to the baby, result in nutrient imbalance and could produce undesirable interaction with some of its components. In developing countries as in Brazil, one of the world largest agricultural countries, sugar cane, soya, cotton, corn are produced on a large scale and the use of pesticides has been going on for several years. We are proposing to analyse the mineral composition and the presence of pesticides in breast milk of mothers exposed to rural and urban environments. The objective of this project is to get data on breast milk concerning mineral composition, presence of pesticides and possible relationship to them using nuclear analytical technology and non-nuclear methods. (author)