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Causes of birth defects (structural or functional abnormality in a child at birth) could range from genetic problems to environmental factors. There have been many studies previously which have established various factors to birth defects in children. A latest study claims that the father's occupation could be one of the potential causes behind a child born with physical or mental disability.

According to researchers, occupations of fathers that pose risk to a child's well being at birth include artists, photographers, hairdressers, mathematicians and office support workers.

For the study, researchers at the University of North Carolina analyzed data from the US National Birth Defects Prevention Study. They studied career histories of around 1,000 fathers who had a child with one or more birth defects born between 1997 and 2004, according to Mail Online.

The career histories of fathers of children with birth defects were compared to the information about 4,000 fathers who had no congenital abnormalities and the occupations of the fathers were classified into jobs with potential exposure to chemicals or other hazards.

The data analysis revealed that more than two-thirds of the occupations were linked to having a child with a birth defect.

The occupations which did not seem to affect the children negatively were, architects and designers, healthcare professionals, dentists, firefighters, fishermen, car assembly workers, entertainers, smelters and foundry workers, stonemasons and glass blowers/cutters, painters, train drivers/maintenance engineers, soldiers and commercial divers, said the report.

Also, apparently, the study could find an association of certain kind of jobs with certain birth defects in children. For example, a child of a groundskeeper and landscape gardeners was found to be more prone to gut abnormalities.

Other occupations and the associated birth defects are as follows:

• ·        An artist: mouth, eyes and ears, gut, limbs, and heart

• ·        A photographer and a photo processor: cataracts, glaucoma, absence of or insufficient eye tissue

• ·        Drivers: absence of or insufficient eye tissue, glaucoma

According to Dr Andrew Olshan, of the university's North Carolina Centre for Birth Defects Research and Prevention, certain occupations were also found to be associated with more than one congenial abnormality in children.

"For example, photographers and photo-processing workers were associated with three distinct eye defects. Landscapers and groundskeepers were associated with three categories of gastrointestinal defects. Artists were associated with the most number of individual defects, including several eye/ear defects, oral clefts and defects of the gastrointestinal system. To our knowledge, an increased prevalence of birth defects among offspring of artists has not been previously reported," Olshan was quoted as saying by Mail Online.

The research did not study the effect of particular exposures to chemical or other potentially harmful hazards, but could pave way for further researches on specific occupational harms to the fetus.

 "Findings from this broad screening analysis can be used to inform further investigation of specific paternal occupations found to be associated with birth defects and to generate hypotheses about chemical or physical exposures and exposure mixtures common to such occupations," Olshan added.

The study was published online in Occupational and Environmental Medicine.