Babies With Low-birth Weight Born to Women Living in Air Pollution: Study

The perpetually increasing air pollution in the world is affecting not only the present generation but also the generations to come. Many studies on the rapid effect of air pollution on pregnant women and their unborn children have been conducted. Earlier, in a study conducted by the University of California, San Francisco, USA, it was said that in the year 2019, 6 million babies were born prematurely due to air pollution and the resulting smoke.

Now, a study conducted by researchers from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel has found that babies of women living in poor air conditions are of low birth weight. Worse, their health does not improve with time either. Furthermore, the study concluded that pregnant women, who are underweight or belong to a weak socio-economic background, are more susceptible to air pollution. The findings of this study have been published in the Environmental Research Journal.

It has also been ascertained by the study that the long-term adverse effects of air pollution are more on the newborn baby and the first child. Which biological system is responsible for this is something yet to be known.

Professor Hagai Levine of the Hebrew University says that the research, based on just over 381,000 births over 11 years (2004-2015), gives a rare glimpse into the effects of pollution on fetuses, and may well be a barometer of other health impacts.

Levine, who co-authored the study with his doctoral student Wiessam Abu Ahmad, explained that Israel was an ideal location for such a study because medical records are fully digitised, pollution levels are relatively high, and mothers have more children than in most developed countries.

“Governments should put effort into doing exactly what we did — tracking correlations between pollution and birth weight on a large scale. It’s important for the health of babies, but it’s actually also a broader indicator of the impact of pollution,” he said to Times of Israel.

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