pregnant women

Air pollution can harm pregnant women

Traffic related air pollution could have harmful effects on both the fetus and the mother to be.

Though air pollution is a major health problem affecting everyone, in the case of pregnant women, there is a greater risk both for the fetus and the mother to get affected by it. It is believed that women who live in areas with a high level of pollution are more likely to suffer pre-term birth as compared with women who live in less polluted areas.

To investigate the affect of pollution on pregnant women, researchers at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles collected detailed information for more than 2,500 women who gave birth in Los Angeles County 4 years back. By conducting one-on-one interviews with the women, the air pollution risk was separated from other pre-term birth risk factors.

The results showed that the association between air pollution and increased risk of pre-term birth persists after accounting for other factors that might influence pre-term birth risk such as smoking, exposure to second-hand smoke and alcohol use. Women who live in areas with high carbon monoxide or fine particle levels - pollution caused mainly by motor vehicle traffic -- are more likely to give birth to pre-term babies [delivery before 37 weeks of pregnancy], when exposed to such pollution, compared with women who live in less polluted areas. This is especially true for women who breathe polluted air during the first 3 months of pregnancy or during the last months and weeks before delivery.

Thus, pregnant women need to take extra care in case they happen to live in highly polluted areas.