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Andjelkovic et al. J Environ Expo Assess 2024;3:23 https://dx.doi.org/10.20517/jeea.2024.22 Page 17 of 20

resulting in their continued detection in human milk. It is also essential to emphasize that the WHO
advocates for breast milk as the optimal nutrition for infants, as it contains antibodies that protect against
various common childhood illnesses and delivers all the energy and nutrients required during the initial
months of life.

DECLARATIONS
Acknowledgments
The authors thank the Belgian Federal Public Service of Public Health, Safety of Food Chain and
Environment for giving us the trust to conduct the study (DG5/AMSZ/DA/14002) and Aurelie Dussart for
ensuring the sample flow. We thank the team of Sciensano, namely Tim Reyns (currently working
elsewhere), Philippe Szternfeld, Jean-Yves Michelet, Khariklia Tsilikas, Martine Deridder (retired), Jessica
Marchi, Karoline Witpas (currently working elsewhere), and Patricia Ntarima (currently working
elsewhere) for performing part of analyses. We thank Sophie Carbonnelle for reading the analytical
protocols and ensuring the quality of the analyses according to the performance criteria set in ISO 17025, as
evaluated by the Belgian accreditation body BELAC. Finally, we thank all the mothers who participated in
this study. We also acknowledge the support of the staff at the participating maternities.

Authors’ contributions
Conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, investigation, writing - original draft preparation, review
and editing, visualization, funding acquisition, supervision, project administration, funding acquisition:
Andjelkovic M
Methodology, formal analysis, investigation, writing - original draft preparation, review and editing,
visualization: Van Overmeire I
Conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, investigation, writing - review and editing: Joly L
Conceptualization, methodology, writing - review and editing. Visualization: Poma G
Conceptualization, formal analysis, methodology, resources, validation, writing - review and editing:
Malarvannan G
Writing - review and editing, methodology, formal analysis: Vleminckx C
Resources, validation, writing - review and editing: Malysheva SV
Investigation, formal analysis: Vanhouche M
Funding acquisition, conceptualization: Van Nieuwenhuyse A
Conceptualization, writing - review and editing: Van Loco J
Conceptualisation, funding acquisition, methodology, writing - review and editing, supervision: Covaci A

Availability of data and materials
Data not shown here are reported in Supplementary Materials or can be made available upon reasonable
request to the corresponding author.

Financial support and sponsorship
Funding source: Belgian Federal Public Service of Public Health, Safety of Food Chain and Environment
(study DG5/AMSZ/DA/14002).

Conflicts of interest
Poma G and Covaci A are Editorial Board members of Journal of Environmental Exposure Assessment, while
the other authors have declared that they have no conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval and consent to participate
The recruitment strategy, informed consent documents, questionnaires, documentation for participating
mothers and maternities, sampling protocol, and insurance documents were reviewed and approved by the