By Brad Haire
University of Georgia

A pregnant woman walks down the street of a large city. She
doesn’t know it, but the air she’s breathing could be hurting
her unborn baby.

From recent studies in many countries, scientists suspect a
relationship between exposure to air pollution and health
problems like preterm births, low birth weights, poor fetal
development and mortality, said Luke Naeher, an environmental
epidemiologist with the University of Georgia College of
Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

The question

Scientists know the air pollution in large cities can aggravate
or cause health problems in children and adults. But how can it
affect a baby inside a mother’s womb?

Naeher wants to answer this question.

In the summer of 2002, Naeher studied the personal air pollution
exposure of 45 pregnant women in Trujillo, Peru. His co-
investigator was Manuel Aguilar Villalobos, director of the
Asociacion de Aire Ambient in Lima, Peru.

Based on this research, the American Chemistry Council has
awarded Naeher a $100,000 grant to expand his research in
Trujillo.

Naeher will measure the personal pollution exposure of 100
pregnant Trujillo women (50 from urban and 50 from rural areas)
during their pregnancies.

He and his team will measure air pollution levels inside the
homes of the pregnant women and at one urban and one rural site.
The team will collect blood and urine samples from the women
during their pregnancies and postdeliveries. And they’ll collect
samples of meconium, a baby’s first feces, and umbilical cord
blood from the newborns.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will analyze the
samples.

“This study will help us understand the magnitude and potential
impact of prenatal exposure to a range of environmental
pollutants,” Naeher said.

Peruvian problem

Trujillo is a city of about 750,000 people in a developing
country. It has higher levels of air pollution than most U.S.
cities. Peruvian standards and regulations on vehicle emissions,
the leading cause of air pollution, are weakly enforced. And
they’re 30 years behind those in the United States, he said.

In many cases, homes in Trujillo offer no escape from air
pollution. Many people there use wood or kerosene stoves to heat
and cook inside homes with little ventilation.

“The indoor environment smoke exposure generated from these
stoves is orders of magnitude higher than levels typically seen
in U.S. homes,” he said.

Naeher hopes the study will lead to simple economical and
cultural changes that can reduce air pollution and protect the
population of Trujillo.

The data, he said, can be used to understand the effects of air
pollution on pregnant women and unborn babies in the United
States and other countries, too.