EXPERTS from the University of Aberdeen were part of a study which has found air pollution particles can reach babies in the womb.
Researchers found that soot nanoparticles can cross the placenta and get into organs of foetuses.
A team from both the University of Aberdeen and Hasselt University, Belgium, said their finding was “especially concerning” because key organ development occurs when babies are growing in the uterus.
The study examined 60 mothers and their babies in Aberdeen and the Grampian region in Scotland.
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They also analysed tissue samples from 36 foetuses which had been aborted between seven and 20 weeks of gestation.
The team found evidence of “black carbon particles” – also known as soot particles – in umbilical cord blood, which shows the particles can cross the placenta.
Soot particles were present in all mothers and newborns.
The level of particles found was linked to the amount of air pollution the mother was exposed to during pregnancy.
“We found that maternally inhaled carbonaceous air pollution particles can cross the placenta and then translocate into human foetal organs during gestation,” the authors wrote in the journal Lancet Planetary Health.
“These findings are especially concerning because this window of exposure is key to organ development.”
The research team also found the presence of particles in the livers, lungs and brains of the aborted foetuses.
The team warned that the particles can be seen as early as the first trimester of pregnancy.
This is the first time it has been shown that black carbon nanoparticles can be found in developing foetuses.
It is one of many gases and particles which are emitted when diesel, coal and other biomass fuels are burned.
The University of Aberdeen’s Professor Paul Fowler said: “We found that maternally inhaled carbonaceous air pollution particles can cross the placenta and then translocate into human foetal organs during gestation,” the authors wrote in the journal Lancet Planetary Health.
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“These findings are especially concerning because this window of exposure is key to organ development.”
Professor Tim Nawrot, from Hasselt University, added: “We know that exposure to air pollution during pregnancy and infancy has been linked with still birth, pre-term birth, low weight babies and disturbed brain development, with consequences persisting throughout life.
“We show in this study that the number of black carbon particles that get into the mother are passed on proportionally to the placenta and into the baby.
“This means that air quality regulation should recognise this transfer during gestation and act to protect the most susceptible stages of human development.”
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