Chemical exposure in pregnancy has gotten worse

Over the past decade, pregnant women’s chemical exposure increased considerably, research finds.

The study also shows that Hispanic women and other women of color and those of lower socioeconomic status and education had higher concentrations of multiple pesticides and parabens “consistent with prior evidence that chemical exposures are frequently higher among women of color,” says study coauthor John Meeker, a professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

The researchers used urine samples of women who are part of the National Institutes of Health’s Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program to look at their exposure to more than 100 chemicals listed in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), including pesticides, chemicals from plastics, and newer chemicals that have been introduced to replace chemicals considered dangerous.

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco led the study, which appears in Environmental Science & Technology. The NIH supported the work.

Meeker, professor of environmental health sciences and global public health, discusses the study here:

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