Pregnant women are always mindful of the things they put inside their body for the duration of the pregnancy. They always try to weigh whether it can have a good or a terrible effect on the growing baby inside them. However, who would have thought that the air they breathe can have a negative effect on the woman's unborn child?
According to a joint study by the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health and New York State Psychiatric Institute, that air pollutants may negatively affect the growing baby. For the study, the researchers examined blood samples of 462 pairs of mother and child living in New York City from the time of the mother was pregnant until the child turned 11.
Medical Daily reported that researchers suspect prenatal exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), which is a common air pollutant, can increase the risk of an unborn child's attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), symptoms of anxiety, depression, and inattention.
These pollutants are commonly found in the environment caused by motor vehicles, tobacco smoke, and emissions from burning coal and oil for heating the home and provide power.
The team tested children's behavior at ages three, four, five, seven, nine, and eleven and finally arrived to a conclusion that the mother's exposure to PAH during pregnancy could cause abnormal behavioral patterns for the child. The longer women are exposed to during pregnancy, the worse their children's score is on the behavior test, historyscoper.com reported.
Amy Margolis, the study's lead investigator and a professor of medical psychology at Columbia University Medical Center explained that the study shows how prenatal exposure to air pollution can affect the development of the child's self-regulation. "This may cause the development of many childhood psychopathologies that derive from deficits in self-regulation, such as ADHD, OCD, substance use disorders, and eating disorders," she continued.
