Exposing to traffic pollution during pregnancy is not good for both the baby and mother. According to a new study, it can lead to maternal pre-eclampsia.
Pre-eclampsia is a condition that triggers hypertension and will have a negative impact on both the pregnant women and their babies. Women suffering from pre-eclampsia will have high blood pressure, fluid retention and protein in the urine leading to adverse impact on the growth of the unborn baby in the uterus. The exact cause of this condition is yet to be fully known.
A team of researchers included more than 23,000 pregnant women to examine the hidden risks associated with exposing to pollution from road traffic, Environmental Health News reported.
"Modest increases in exposure were associated with a 30 per cent increase in risk - and more-so among women with other major risk factors for pre-eclampsia," lead author Gavin Pereira, who did the research while at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in Western Australia, told CBC News.
Pereira and team measured and recorded the nitrogen dioxide levels in the atmosphere to determine the traffic-related air pollution. They looked at medical records of 23,452 pregnancies in Perth, Western Australia during 2000 and 2006.
All the participants were 30 weeks pregnant and the researchers used government data to collect the pregnant women's residential addresses and health records. Apart from these details, data containing air pollution, weather and traffic volume were drawn from local monitoring stations.
Other factors like history of diabetes, age, smoking, ethnicity and previous pregnancies were also taken into consideration.
At the end of the analysis, the researchers found a 30 percent higher risk of developing the pre-eclampsia when exposed to a higher level of air pollution during the third trimester and the risk was found relatively high for diabetes patients.
"Although I cannot fully explain why exposure seems more relevant in late pregnancy, it is this period when most cases of pre-eclampsia develop," Pereira told CBC News. "My interpretation is that traffic-related air pollution is more of a precipitating or promoting cause than an initiating cause of pre-eclampsia."
Results of the study have been published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, recently.
