Lead, cadmium and arsenic in breast milk of lactating mothers in Odumanse-Atua community in Manya Krobo district of Eastern region of Ghana

Abstract

With the recent introduction of the policy of absolute breast feeding of infants in Ghana for the first six months after birth, this triggered our interest in investigating the presences of some heavy metals in breast milk. Breast milk samples were collected from twenty lactating mothers below the ages of twenty five in the Odumanse-Atua community in the Manya Krobo district of Eastern Region of Ghana. The samples obtained by self milking into sterilized polyethylene bottles and well labeled. Few drops of 0.1 M trichloroacetic acid were added to the sample and the aqueous layer heated at 5000 C for one hour. After ashing, it was digested with 0.5 M HNO3 and the metals analyzed using an AAS (Philip AAS 9200U model). The mean level of Pb was 4.33 µg/L with a range of < LOD -32.0 µg/L. The mean level of Cd was found to be 1. 34 µg/L and range < LOD -12.301 µg/L. The mean arsenic concentration was 1.54 µg/L and ranging between < LOD - 6.22 µg/L