Illness in the air: how pollution causes heart disease and cancer

Pollution and prenatal problems
Mounting evidence suggests that environmental contaminants may also contribute to a wide range of reproductive health problems, endangering the next generation.

Exposure to high levels of air pollution is linked to lower birth weights and pre-term deliveries; these babies are then at greater risk of neurological problems, infections and heart ailments.

Reproductive toxicants can be found in drinking water, food, soil, air and, unfortunately, our bodies. A 2005 Environmental Working Group report found, on average, more than 200 industrial chemicals in the umbilical cord blood of newborns in the United States, including traces of 21 pesticides. Of the 287 different chemicals detected, 208 caused birth defects or abnormal development when tested on animals.

Researchers believe chemicals may affect the weight of the unborn child directly through the placenta, by causing poor nutrient or oxygen supply. Each year in Canada, prenatal exposure to environmental contaminants is associated with as many as 2,500 low-weight births. "When a baby is born too small, there are many health risks that could carry on later in life," says Linda Dodds, an epidemiologist in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

Studies by Dodds and Will King of Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., have found higher rates of stillbirths in women exposed to high levels of chlorination byproducts in drinking water. Congenital anomalies have also been linked to contaminants including lead and nitrates in drinking water, solvents, pthalates, pesticides and ethanol.

This past November, our federal government announced a $3.9-million research study to track chemical pollutants in about 2,000 pregnant women and their babies. One of the goals of the study is to see if environmental contaminants are having harmful effects on fetal development and on infants after birth.

This article was first printed in the April 2008 issue of Homemakers Magazine. Click to subscribe online and never miss an issue.