Abstract
Recently, the number of studies regarding the contamination levels of organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) in human breast milk has largely increased. The majority of these studies have focused on the factors that might affect the transfer of OCPs to human breast milk. The present paper is a structured review illustrating studies that examined factors that may affect OCP levels in human breast milk. First, forty two publications covering a large number of countries worldwide were analyzed. Only twenty five papers have detailed the effects of different parameters, related to the studied women, on the OCP levels. These articles provided information on the physiological and external characteristics of the participating mothers and which are considered important factors that may explain the data presented. Despite the diversity of the results, the mother's age, parity, duration of lactation period, food intake, area of residence, smoking habits and time variations were considered as the major influencing factors.