Cord blood biomonitoring is a scientific technique for assessing a newborn child’s exposure to both natural and synthetic chemicals, based on sampling and analysis of the blood from the umbilical cord immediately after birth.  Cord blood biomonitoring provides a snapshot of exposure in the newborn.

As with other biomonitoring techniques, cord blood provides no information about sources of exposure to the mother and child, how long a chemical has been present, or whether it poses a health risk.  As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states in its national-exposure reports, finding a chemical in people’s blood or urine does not necessarily mean that it causes a health risk or disease.

There are a number of unique limitations to cord blood biomonitoring.  More research is needed to determine to what extent cord blood samples reflect exposure to the developing child over the nine months in the womb.  As a practical matter, it is difficult to collect cord blood samples from an adequate number of individuals and from a sufficiently diverse group to accurately represent exposure levels in a specific region or country.  Cord blood biomonitoring results should thus be interpreted with these limitations in mind.