Cadmium in finnish breast milk, a longitudinal study

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Abstract
Electrothermal atomic absorption spectrophotometry was employed to analyse cadmium in breast milk. Twenty breast milk samples were donated by seven mothers during 6 months of lactation. All milk samples represented every feeding during a period of 24 h, having foremilk an hindmilk in equal proportions. The median cadmium concentration in the 1st month was 2.0 μg/l (range 1.7–3.1 μg/l, 7 samples) and then declined to 1.5 μg/l (range 1.3–2.5 μg/l, 7 samples) and 1.6 μg/l (range 1.2–2.0 μg/l, 6 samples) in the 3rd and 6th months, respectively. At the age of 1 and 3 months when the infants were totally breast fed the average weekly intake of cadmium was 2.7 and 1.5 μg/kg. This is below the provisional tolerable weekly intake of man, from 6.7 to 8.3 μg/kg, proposed by WHO.