Air Pollutants Linked To Higher Risk Of Birth Defect
Air pollutants linked to higher risk of birth defects, researchers find | News Center | Stanford Medicine : "Breathing traffic pollution in early pregnancy is linked to a higher risk for certain serious birth defects, according to new research from the Stanford University School of Medicine. The finding comes from a study examining air quality and birth-defect data for women living in California’s San Joaquin Valley, one of the smoggiest regions of the country. “We found an association between specific traffic-related air pollutants and neural tube defects, which are malformations of the brain and spine,” said the study’s lead author, Amy Padula, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar in pediatrics. The research appears online today in the American Journal of Epidemiology.