A baby's risk of being still born rises in accordance with their father’s total exposure to external ionising radiation before conception. The risk was higher for still births with congenital anomaly and highest for the still births with neural-tube defects.

The study examined 248,097 live births and 3715 still births registered in Cumbria 1950-89, which included 9078 live births and 130 still births to partners of male radiation workers at Sellafield. The father’s likely exposure to radiation during the 90 days before conception was estimated from annual external dose summaries. Those with the highest exposures ran three times the risk of producing a still birth.

Ed.-

• The study was conducted by the Departments of Child Health and Statistics at Newcastle University, and partially funded by British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL)

• BNFL later briefed workers that there was no evidence of a cause and effect link and that workers should not change any plans for having a family