Oral Presentation Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry Australasia 2023

Evaluation of micro and nano plastic background of commercial breast milk storage bags (#27)

Laura Puente-De La Cruz 1 , Cassandra Rauert 1 , Kevin Thomas 1
  1. Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences (QAEHS), The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QUEENSLAND, Australia

Micro and nano plastics (MNPs) have been a growing area of interest in recent years due to their ubiquitous presence in the environment, however little information is known regarding human exposure and the possible effects that they might have in our health. Information about potential infant exposure is even more limited with a few studies identifying MNPs in placenta, meconium, faeces, breast milk, infant formula and baby feeding containers. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to evaluate the MNPs background in breast milk storage bags as a possible source of infant exposure.

Five brands of commercial breast milk storage bags were selected; the experimental procedure consisted of filling the breast milk storage bags with 150 mL of appropriate food simulant (50% v/v ethanol) or 150 mL of filtered ultrapure water by triplicate followed by storage in the fridge or freezer for different periods of time. The storage times were of 4 days in the fridge and 2, 4 or 12 weeks in the freezer considering the storage recommendation periods from Queensland Health. After the selected time period, the contents from each bag are filtered through 1.0 µm and 0.3 µm glass fibre filters.

Every batch of 10 samples included two procedural blanks and two sample blanks and all filtration procedures were performed in a Clean Lab to reduce contamination from environmental and deposition contamination, all materials used were metal or glass and both samples and reagents were kept covered at all times. Analysis is conducted by pyrolysis gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (Pyr-GC/MS). From this study we expect to be able to quantify and identify the MNPs that could be released into the expressed breast milk when stored for different periods and that might therefore be ingested by infants.

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