Could Air Pollution be more Toxic than Cigarette Smoke for Pregnant Women?

The mother's health during pregnancy plays a crucial part of the future baby's overall well being. Oftentimes, doctors recommend that pregnant women watch their diets, avoid certain medications and even avoid certain environments that could pose potentially hazardous conditions to their future child.

As previous studies have shown that breathing in cigarette smoke can increase a mother-to-be's risk of such complications as preeclampsia, researchers from the University of Florida discovered that air pollution may be even more toxic to the baby's health.

For their study, researchers compared birth data with Environmental Protection Agency estimates of air pollution in the United States. They found that exposure to four air pollutants in particular led to a significantly increased risk for developing a high blood pressure disorder during pregnancy.

Such pollutants related to health issues in pregnant women included types of fine and coarse particulate matter, sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide.

"Fetal development is very sensitive to environmental factors," said Xiaohui Xu, M.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor of epidemiology in the colleges of Public Health and Health Professions and Medicine, via Science Daily. "That is why we wanted to do this research. Hypertension (high blood pressure), in particular, is associated with increased morbidity and mortality, causing a lot of problems for the mother and fetus, including preterm delivery." 

Background information from the study notes that approximately 10 percent of pregnancies are affected by hypertensive disorders, including gestational hypertension and preeclampsia.

The researchers also examined data from women who gave birth in Jacksonville, Florida, between 2004 and 2005, along with environmental conditions in those communities. Analyzing this information helped them to get a better grasp of certain factors that may play a role in increased health risks during pregnancy. The sample included over 22,000 pregnant women. However, mothers with chronic hypertension were not included, and neither were those who had previously given birth prematurely or those whose babies were born with other complications in the sample.

While gauging how much pollution the women were exposed to during their pregnancies, they found that 4.6 percent developed a hypertensive disorder during pregnancy. According to Xu, exposure to air pollutants throughout the first two trimesters increased this risk along with a number of other health conditions.
   
"It looks like the whole period has impacts for hypertension," he said. On the basis of these findings, the researchers say more air pollution control is necessary to prevent dangerous complications in pregnant women and babies.

What do you think?

More information regarding the findings can be seen via the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.