Study shows liquefied petroleum gas does not reduce stunted growth in infants

An intervention that replaces biomass fuel (e.g., wood, dung, or agricultural crop waste) with liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for cooking does not reduce the risk for stunted growth in infants, according to a study published in the Jan. 4 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Noting that household air pollution is associated with stunted growth in infants, William Checkley, M.D., Ph.D., from the Johns Hopkins Center for Global Non-Communicable Disease Research and Training in Baltimore, and colleagues conducted a randomized trial involving 3,200 pregnant women aged 18 to 34 years in four low- and middle-income countries.

Women at nine to <20 weeks of gestation were randomly assigned to use a free LPG cookstove with continuous free fuel delivery for 18 months (intervention group; 1,536 liveborn infants) or to continue using a biomass cookstove (control group; 1,525 liveborn infants).

The researchers found that adherence to the intervention was high, and compared with control, the intervention resulted in lower prenatal and postnatal 24-hour personal exposures to fine particulate matter (mean prenatal exposure, 35.0 versus 103.3 μg/m³; mean postnatal exposure, 37.9 versus 109.2 μg/m³).

Overall, 76.2 and 77.8 percent of the infants born to women in the intervention and control groups, respectively, had a valid length measurement at 12 months. Stunting occurred in 27.4 and 25.2 percent of infants born to women in the intervention and control groups, respectively (relative risk, 1.10; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.94 to 1.29; P = 0.12).

"These findings do not support the use of unventilated LPG cookstoves to achieve reductions in childhood stunting," the authors write.