Study Says Infants Children At Risk From Common Hazardous Environmental Exposures

Infants and children are more susceptible to environmental hazards than adults due to their smaller body size. The same exposure is more concentrated in infants and children than it is in adults.

Certain time windows, known as the critical period of development, also render the fetus and infant more vulnerable to common and unavoidable environmental toxicants, especially those which disrupt development.

Researchers believe that the fetus, infant, and child may experience adverse health outcomes from parental exposures to environmental toxicants. In additional, childhood exposures to environmental toxicants may impact health outcome.

Researchers reviewed current scientific knowledge of the associations between child health, development outcomes, and environmental exposures. The environmental exposures reviewed included common and unavoidable exposures to "lead, methylmercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxins and related polyhalogenated aromatic hydrocarbons (PHAHs), certain pesticides, environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), aeroallergens, ambient air toxicants (especially particulate matter [PM] and ozone), chlorination disinfection by-products (DBPs), sunlight, power-frequency magnetic fields, radiofrequency (RF) radiation, residential proximity to hazardous waste disposal sites, and solvents."

The adverse health effects linked to these exposures include "fetal death, birth defects, being small for gestational age (SGA), preterm birth, clinically overt cognitive, neurologic, and behavioral abnormalities, subtle neuropsychologic deficits, childhood cancer, asthma, other respiratory diseases, and acute poisoning."

Some environmental toxicants, including ambient air toxicants, have been shown to produce adverse health effects at low exposure levels during the critical period.

There are, however, many limitations to the available data. The researchers argue that large longitudinal studies beginning before or during early pregnancy are urgently needed, Large case-control studies are also needed. Wigle and colleagues state "there is also an urgent need to accelerate development and use of biomarkers of exposure and genetic susceptibility in epidemiologic studies… governments and agencies must strengthen environmental health research capacities and adopt policies to reduce parental and childhood exposures to proven and emerging environmental threats."

In the interim, parents and children can avoid unnecessary exposures, maintain a natural environment without the use of fragrances, pesticides, and products that release industrial pollutants. In other words, we can live the most natural life possible. If we leave the least imprint on the environment, the environment will leave the least imprint on us. In the end, our children will reap the benefits.

Reference

Wigle DT, Arbuckle TE, Walker M, Wade MG, Liu S, Krewski D. Environmental hazards: evidence for effects on child health. J Toxicol Environ Health B Crit Rev. 2007 Jan-Mar;10(1-2):3-39.

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