How air pollution affects stunting in children

Minor and largely familiar(especially for large metropolitan areas) exhaust fumes, microscopic dust particles and other pollutants will no doubt negatively affect our health. About 4 million people die every year due to dangerous particles in the air, and this is only the data of the World Health Organization. But can such air have a negative effect on people who have not yet been born, but are in the womb? Researchers at the Global Health Institute in Barcelona say yes.

Due to dirty air, children develop more slowly up to 4 years

According to scientists, if pregnant woman is in contaminated air during the first trimester (first 3 months of pregnancy), this can subsequently lead to stunted growth in her child. Moreover, a dirty environment does not affectonly in the first months of the baby’s life, but also up to 4 years! According to the definition of researchers, almost any large metropolis, such as Moscow or St. Petersburg, is suitable for a “polluted air” area.

Sources of air pollution

To find out, Spanish scientists conductedA study involving more than 1,700 pregnant women living in the following cities in Spain: Asturias, Gipuzkoa, Sabadell and Valencia. With the help of monitoring stations, they studied the content of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in the air of these regions, usually it is “thrown away” by plants and PM2.5 - fine dust, which is in any city, which is mainly raised by cars. After the first trimester, they began to monitor the health of children, making an assessment of their height and weight, measuring the size of the mom’s waist and blood pressure.

Parts of polluted air - are a mixture of particles, each ofwhich in size does not exceed 2.5 micrometers in diameter. Once in the lungs, these particles mainly settle there, but they are so small that they can penetrate the bloodstream and spread thanks to a developed system of blood vessels in all our organs and tissues.

Accordingly, they get to the fetus of a pregnant life as well as to its heart, liver and other organs.

Pregnant women should be in a favorable environment

After the birth of the children, the researchers alsocontinued their observation until the time they turned 4 years old. During this time, scientists recorded a decrease in weight and body mass index of children up to 30% in comparison with the WHO reference scales. Fine dust PM2.5 had the greatest influence, and growth retardation and weight gain in boys was stronger than in girls. In addition, hundreds of children were found to have a risk of cardiovascular disease, but failed to relate this to the harm from a bad environment.

It was previously believed that polluted airaffects children, but only in the first months of their life. Just no one has conducted such a large-scale research as the Spanish scientists. The first trimester of pregnancy was specially chosen, because it is this time that is most important for the development of the fetus. It is just beginning to form, and at this stage the cardiovascular system of the child is already appearing.

To make the study more accurate, scientistsalso conducted a preliminary survey of mothers. They were asked about bad habits (smoking, alcohol and so on), diseases, lifestyle. However, it cannot be ruled out that in one case or another, hereditary factors and, for example, the physical stress of the mother, and not the environmental situation, influenced the child’s height and weight.

What is dangerous dirty air

Actually the above regions of Spaincan not be called heavily polluted, so it’s even scary to imagine that if you conduct a similar experiment in larger cities - for example, in New York, London or the same Moscow. In these cities, the content of harmful substances and fine dust is much higher. Only in Russia, due to air pollution, life expectancy on average decreased by 9 months. Now even there are special online maps where you can study the concentration of air polluting elements in the districts of Moscow. Near places where methane is burned, the concentration of harmful substances often exceeds the norm. Not to mention the constant emissions of hydrogen sulfide - information about this periodically appears in the media.

A typical picture of any industrial city. Then all these particles enter the human body.

Due to the quarantine caused by the coronavirus, the air on Earth has become much cleaner. Fewer people - less pollution.

Last year, another group of scientists investigated exposure to air pollution on developing brain and mental healthchildren. To do this, they analyzed 145 MRI images of 12-year-old children and used their addresses to assess how much they live in an area with polluted air. Children living in areas with more polluted air were more likely to have symptoms of anxiety disorder. Moreover, these children had an increased concentration of a substance called myo-inositol in the area of ​​the brain that is responsible for the emotional state. Its excess is dangerous not only in mental illness, but also in violation of mental functions.