an “alarming” number of chemicals are currently flowing through the blood of pregnant women, including 55 previously unreported in humans and 42 that couldn’t even be identified, according to a new study.
the research, published in environmental science & technology, said the 109 chemicals of concern were also detected in the women’s newborn babies, most likely migrating there through the placenta during pregnancy. consumer products and other industrial sources are the main culprit,
said tracey j. woodruff
, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the university of california, san francisco (ucfc).
“these chemicals have probably been in people for quite some time, but our technology is now helping us to identify more of them,” said woodruff, who is also the director of ucfc’s program on reproductive health and the environment and the environmental research and translation for health (earth) center. “it is alarming that we keep seeing certain chemicals travel from pregnant women to their children, which means these chemicals can be with us for generations.”
to identify the chemicals, researchers employed high-resolution spectrometry and then compared the findings against the “analytical standards” manufacturers use during production. the process has been complicated by the growing refusal of some companies to make this information readily available, often under the guise of trade secrets. solvay, a chemical manufacturer cited by the researchers, no longer allows access to the standards it uses in the creation of one perfluorooctanoic acid (pfas) compound that has replaced other discontinued pfas compounds.
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