Updated 6 August 2021
Five studies about how environmental toxicity affects children’s health
Childhood is an amazing time of rapid growth and development, and should be protected. But there’s accumulating evidence that the environment we live in is increasingly a threatening one for our most vulnerable. Even before babies are born, environmental pollutants, found in our personal spaces and daily items, can be causing developmental harm.
By learning about the impact of these environmental pollutants, parents can meaningfully assess their environment to prepare for a healthy conception, birth, and the precious early years. There are thousands of peer-reviewed clinical trials, randomised controlled trials and meta-analysis on the dangers of environmental toxins on children’s development. This article highlights five important studies when it comes to children’s health and how it can be bad for their health, cognitive potential, and wellbeing.
1. Babies are being born pre-polluted
Study: A Benchmark Investigation of Industrial Chemicals, Pollutants, and Pesticides in Umbilical Blood
In a study spearheaded by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) in collaboration with Commonweal, researchers at two major laboratories found an average of 200 industrial chemicals and pollutants in umbilical cord blood from 10 babies born in August and September of 2004 in U.S. hospitals. Tests revealed a total of 287 chemicals in the group. The umbilical cord blood of these 10 children, collected by Red Cross after the cord was cut, harbored pesticides, consumer product ingredients, and wastes from burning coal, gasoline, and garbage.
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) found an average of 200 industrial chemicals and pollutants in the umbilical cord blood of infants born in the U.S. Chemicals and pollutants detected in human umbilical cord blood include: mercury, Polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), Perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs).
Why is this important?
Previously, scientists thought that the placenta shielded cord blood — and the developing baby — from most chemicals and pollutants in the environment. Now we know the umbilical cord carries not only the building blocks of life, but also industrial chemicals, pollutants and pesticides that cross the placenta as readily as residues from cigarettes and alcohol. This is the human "body burden", that babies are already being born with.
Such studies are finding the same concern worldwide. In one study involving mothers living in London, UK, revealed sooty particles in the placentas of each of their babies and quite likely entered the foetuses too. Similar studies were done in Beijing, China, and the Czech Republic. This review concludes that pollution is an international public health policies and human rights. Indeed, environmental pollution is a global issue, and calls for a need for action to be taken to reduce exposure to environmental pollutants, especially during pregnancy.
2. Chemicals and microbes could be linked to autism
Study: Study shows California's autism increase not due to better counting, diagnosis
The seven- to eight-fold increase in the number children born in California with autism since 1990 cannot be explained by either changes in how the condition is diagnosed or counted. Arguments that this increase could be due to factors did not hold up in the study, including factors such as migration into California of families with autistic children, inclusion of children with milder forms of autism in the counting and earlier ages of diagnosis as consequences of improved surveillance or greater awareness.
The incidence of autism by age six (in California, USA) has increased from fewer than nine in 10,000 for children born in 1990 to more than 44 in 10,000 for children born in 2000.
Published in the January 2009 issue of the journal Epidemiology, results from the study also suggest that research should shift from genetics to the host of chemicals and infectious microbes in the environment that are likely at the root of changes in the neurodevelopment of California’s children.
UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute researcher Irva Hertz-Picciotto, a professor of environmental and occupational health and epidemiology and an internationally respected autism researcher, said:
“It’s time to start looking for the environmental culprits responsible for the remarkable increase in the rate of autism in California. (…) Right now, about 10 to 20 times more research dollars are spent on studies of the genetic causes of autism than on environmental ones.”
Why is this important?
Pregnancy is an incredible sensitive time for brain and nerve development. Autism has increased in the last few decades, from 1 in 5,000 to 1 in 68 (US data). This rise is similar in many countries, and disputes the previously held belief that autism is genetic. Rather, the rise in autism and many neurological disorders correlates with the increasing level of environmental toxins.
In Finland, a study of more than 1 million pregnancies in Finland reports that elevated levels of a metabolite of the banned insecticide DDT in the blood of pregnant women are linked to increased risk for autism in the offspring. The study is the first to connect an insecticide with risk for autism using maternal biomarkers of exposure.
3. Heavy metals can cause health issues, such as allergies, eczema, and asthma
Study: Exposure to cadmium in the womb linked to childhood asthma and allergies
Researchers analysed maternal blood samples from 706 pregnant women in maternity units in France and cord blood after delivery. The researchers evaluated serum concentrations of lead, cadmium and manganese to investigate the association with fetal exposure and risk for developing asthma, allergic rhinitis, eczema and food allergy in childhood.
Researchers followed the children up to age 8 years. Parents responded to annual questionnaires on children’s health, asthma, allergic rhinitis, eczema and food allergy symptoms. The study accounted for possible factors known to influence these conditions such as parental smoking history and family medical history.
Professor Isabella Annesi-Maesano, research director at France's Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale (INSERM) and head of the epidemiology of allergic and respiratory diseases department of the Institute Pierre Louis of Epidemiology and Public Health, INSERM and Sorbonne Université, Paris, France, said:
“We know from previous research that different types of heavy metals can affect different organs in the body. Our study suggests that exposure to cadmium in the womb could have a role in increasing the risk of asthma and allergies in children. (…) it could be that cadmium is interfering with babies' developing immune systems and we think this can have an impact on their allergic reactions in childhood.”
Why is this important?
Heavy metals have a long half-life and can bio-accumulate in the body, posing a dangerous risk to your health. They are present in many everyday products and can be damaging to health if they enter our bodies through the air we breathe, or our food and drink. It's worrying to know that cadmium and other metals might be reaching unborn babies via the umbilical cord.
The use of cadmium is restricted in the European Union, but it has been widely used, for example in decorative objects — including toys—, batteries, pigments. It is also present in tobacco and can enter the body via smoking or passive smoking.
Lead is extremely toxic at any level. In Asia, while countries such as China and Singapore, recently introduced limits on the lead content of household paints (and India has instituted a voluntary standard), high lead paint may still be sold in these and other countries, and used to paint homes, schools, toys and even playgrounds. no regulation in Malaysia limiting the amount of lead in paint for household and decorative use.
The primary target of lead toxicity in both children and adults is the nervous system, although children are more sensitive to lead’s neurotoxic effects. Children absorb more ingested lead into their blood than adults, at approximately a ratio of 5:1! IQ deficits of one to five points have been associated with blood lead level increases of 10 μg/dL or less in children.
4. Radiation from cellular and cordless phones is a probable human carcinogen
Studies carried out in Sweden indicate that those who begin using either cordless or mobile phones regularly before age 20 have greater than a fourfold increased risk of ipsilateral glioma.
Empirical data have shown a difference in the dielectric properties of tissues as a function of age, mostly due to the higher water content in children's tissues. High resolution computerized models based on human imaging data suggest that children are indeed more susceptible to the effects of EMF exposure at microwave frequencies.
In the study, Dr. Devra Lee Davis concluded:
“no other environmental carcinogen has produced evidence of an increased risk in just one decade.”
Why is this important?
Children are especially vulnerable to the damaging effects of electromagnetic fields than adults are, due to their smaller body mass and developing systems. A child’s brain absorbs two to three times as many EMFs as an adults.
Wireless radition is a Class 2B carcinogen – the same category as lead, DDT, and chloroform, which have banned or strict limits and warnings in their use for children. Sources of wireless radiation exposure are everywhere, and “digital addiction” is real.
Environmental toxins is triggering earlier puberty
Study: Personal Care Product Exposure Tied to Girls' Early Puberty
Researchers found a twofold increase in mothers' urine biomarker concentrations for certain chemicals during pregnancy, which was associated with a significantly earlier average onset of pubarche (first appearance of pubic hair) and menarche (first menstruation) in girls. In boys, elevated exposure to propylparaben at age 9 was the only biomarker tied with a significantly early onset of gonadarche in boys.
The project followed 338 children from before birth into adolescence to reveal how early environmental exposures may impact childhood development.
Chemicals known as endocrine disrupters, commonly found in hygiene products, may mimic hormones and lead children to mature well before their natural time.
“This is important because we know that the age at which puberty starts in girls has been getting earlier in the last few decades -- one hypothesis is that chemicals in the environment might be playing a role, and our findings support this idea (…) Earlier puberty in girls increases their risk of mental health problems and risk-taking behavior as teenagers and increases their risk of breast and ovarian cancer over the long-term, so this is an important issue to address." - Kim Harley, PhD
Why is this important?
Over the past 20 years, girls have been reaching puberty earlier, with high risks of medical and behavioural problems.
Experiences, such as exposure to chemical toxins or drugs and toxic stress before birth or in early childhood are not “forgotten,” but are become part of the developing brain through the epigenome. During development, the DNA that makes up our genes accumulates chemical marks that determine how much or little of the genes is expressed. This collection of chemical marks is known as the “epigenome.” The different experiences children have rearrange those chemical marks.