Toxins transferred to unborn children
* 10 September 2005
* From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
BEFORE we are even born, our bodies may be riddled with pollution. More chemicals from everyday household products cross the placenta from mother to baby than we ever imagined.
Pieter Sauer and colleagues at the University Hospital Groningen in the Netherlands analysed 42 maternal blood samples and 27 samples of blood taken from the umbilical cord. For the first time, they found chemicals used as antibacterial agents, flame-retardants and detergents in umbilical-cord blood. Traces of pesticides, artificial musks and plasticisers also appeared.
Concentrations of the antibacterial agent triclosan were higher in cord blood than in maternal blood, while maternal and cord blood had roughly equal concentrations of phthalates, which are used as plasticisers and are also found in ink, paint and cosmetics. All other chemicals were present in lower concentrations in cord blood than in maternal blood, found the study, which was commissioned by WWF and Greenpeace.
"Apparently, every chemical that is introduced into the environment on a large scale can enter the unborn child," says Sauer. "What we don't know is what the long-term effects of these substances are."
From issue 2516 of New Scientist magazine, 10 September 2005, page 6
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/sex/mg18725163.100
http://www.panda.org/news_facts/news...?uNewsID=23635
http://www.cosmeticsdesign.com/news/...osmetic-babies
* 10 September 2005
* From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
BEFORE we are even born, our bodies may be riddled with pollution. More chemicals from everyday household products cross the placenta from mother to baby than we ever imagined.
Pieter Sauer and colleagues at the University Hospital Groningen in the Netherlands analysed 42 maternal blood samples and 27 samples of blood taken from the umbilical cord. For the first time, they found chemicals used as antibacterial agents, flame-retardants and detergents in umbilical-cord blood. Traces of pesticides, artificial musks and plasticisers also appeared.
Concentrations of the antibacterial agent triclosan were higher in cord blood than in maternal blood, while maternal and cord blood had roughly equal concentrations of phthalates, which are used as plasticisers and are also found in ink, paint and cosmetics. All other chemicals were present in lower concentrations in cord blood than in maternal blood, found the study, which was commissioned by WWF and Greenpeace.
"Apparently, every chemical that is introduced into the environment on a large scale can enter the unborn child," says Sauer. "What we don't know is what the long-term effects of these substances are."
From issue 2516 of New Scientist magazine, 10 September 2005, page 6
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/sex/mg18725163.100
http://www.panda.org/news_facts/news...?uNewsID=23635
http://www.cosmeticsdesign.com/news/...osmetic-babies
