A recent study has discovered that one of the most common pollutants emitted by power plants, vehicles and cigarettes may be especially dangerous for pregnant women and their babies. The researchers found that prenatal exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) led to decreased white matter in the brain, causing behavioral and cognitive problems once the children were born.
The researchers recruited 655 pregnant Dominican and African American women from New York City to take part in the study. The women wore specially designed PAH detector backpacks during late pregnancy to measure their exposure to these pollutants, and their children were later tested for cognitive and behavioral issues.
The study found that the larger the amount of prenatal exposure to PAHs a child had, the more acute their developmental and behavioral issues were. This seemed to be due to a reduction in the volume of white matter in the brain, which also corresponded to PAH exposure. This was true even after controlling for exposure to other pollutants that might affect the brain, like lead and insecticides.
Lead author Dr. Bradley Peterson, director of the Institute for the Developing Mind at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, said in a statement, "The effects were extraordinarily powerful. The more prenatal exposure to PAH, the bigger the white matter problems the kids had. And the bigger the white matter problems, the more severe symptoms of ADHD, aggression and slow processing they had on cognitive tasks."
The study also found that these effects were not limited to the neonatal stage, as children who continued to be exposed to high levels of PAHs after birth had further brain damage.
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