This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related articles  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Pediatrics  • Neonatology and Infant Care  • Radiation Therapy  • Statistics and Research Methods  • Women's Health  • Pregnancy and Breast Feeding  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

In Reply: We share the concerns about possible confounding raised by Dr Reiman (lead poisoning) and Dr Pisaniello (smoking). While restriction of the analysis to individuals with high socioeconomic status and the elimination of self-reported smokers during pregnancy did not affect our estimates of the relationship between dental radiation and LBW, smoking cannot be entirely excluded as a residual confounder. To our knowledge, no documented lead poisoning was reported in our study population, and lead poisoning associated with using intraoral dental films would not explain our observed association with extraoral films or orthodontic procedures. It nevertheless remains an interesting alternative explanation for our findings.

We are unaware of any evidence relating caries to LBW, as Pisaniello suggests, and our analysis did adjust for the use of restorative materials such as mercury-containing fillings.

In response to Drs Henderson and Ahmed, the likelihood for a chance finding was decreased by a number . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Philippe P. Hujoel, PhD
Department of Dental Public Health Sciences

Anne-Marie Bollen, PhD
Department of Orthodontics

Carolyn J. Noonan, MS
Division of General Internal Medicine
University of Washington
Seattle

Michael A. del Aguila, PhD
Washington Dental Service
Seattle

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

RELATED ARTICLES

Antepartum Dental Radiography and Low Birth Weight
Robert E. Reiman
JAMA. 2004;292(9):1019.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Antepartum Dental Radiography and Low Birth Weight
M. Lynn Pisaniello
JAMA. 2004;292(9):1019.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Antepartum Dental Radiography and Low Birth Weight
Cassandra E. Henderson and Hany Ahmed
JAMA. 2004;292(9):1019.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Antepartum Dental Radiography and Low Birth Weight
James Welsh
JAMA. 2004;292(9):1019-1020.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Antepartum Dental Radiography and Low Birth Weight
Peter B. Lockhart, Michael T. Brennan, Howell Sasser, and John Ludlow
JAMA. 2004;292(9):1020.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT