Exposure to Common Pollutant in Womb Might Lower IQ

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To assess the impact of PAH exposure in the womb, the authors conducted air monitoring between 1998 and 2003, during the pregnancy of 249 black and Dominican-American mothers in the Washington Heights and Harlem areas of New York City.

The researchers pointed out that none of the children were born to parents who smoked, removing that type of pollutant exposure from the equation.

All of the women were between the ages of 18 and 35, and none had diabetes, HIV, high blood pressure or a history of illegal drug use.

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Perera and her colleagues found that 140 of the children (a little more than 56 percent) had been exposed to high levels of PAH in the womb.

After adjusting for a range of potentially influential factors -- such as maternal IQ levels and varying types of home caretaking environments -- the authors found that by age 5, those children exposed to high PAH exposure in the womb scored more than four points lower on full-scale IQ tests, and nearly five points lower on verbal IQ tests.

Although such evidence suggests that early intellectual development is indeed negatively affected by high levels of pollutant exposure, research is ongoing and the child participants will continue to be monitored through age 11, the researchers noted.

Meanwhile, Perera says that "aside from making sure that there are no other pollutant sources in the house such as tobacco smoke, families can proactively protect themselves by maintaining a clean home environment and good ventilation of cooking fumes, and by making sure that pregnant women and children consume healthy diets."

But, she noted, "as far as outdoor air exposure, that's a question for policymakers. I'm not a policy expert, but I would say fortunately that there are means at hand to address this problem. They include plans to reduce vehicle emissions, and to develop the technologies that would do so, along with policies that focus on energy efficiency and energy alternatives."

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