Air Pollution Is Poisoning Unborn Babies In Womb, As Black Carbon Found In Mother's Placenta

Pollution is bad enough when you have to deal with it everyday, breathing it in from the air, drinking it in your water, and consuming it in your food.

It's downright horrifying though when you realize it can get to your baby even before they're born.

Images courtesy: Reuters

According to a new scientific study, pollution microparticles that expecting mothers breathe in don't just enter their own system. They can apparently even breach a mother's placenta and potentially reach fetuses in the womb.

Researchers from Hasselt University published their findings in the Nature Communications journal. They found that the harmful black carbon mothers breathe in from coal burning or car emissions can make their way into the fetal side of the placenta from the mother's lungs. And if that happens, it can cause harmful long-term side effects from birth.

Unclean air has previously been linked with an increase in the possibility of a miscarriage, premature birth, and low birth weights. It's part of why mothers are told they can't smoke, but pollution is equally bad for the unborn child.

The problem is, it was previously thought the placenta was an "impenetrable barrier" to toxins and the like. Meaning that it lets nutrients absorb through, and keeps out toxins if they're entering directly through the mother's system via the umbilical cord.

That's why this new study is so scary.

The researchers examined 25 non-smoking women who were giving birth in the Belgian city of Hasselt. Immediately after they delivered, the researchers collected the women's placentas to study them. When they looked at the side facing the fetus (the inside) they found traces of black carbon in some of the samples.

The more black carbon the women were exposed to during pregnancy, the more buildup researchers found in the placenta.

And black carbon is something we're exposed to all the time in India. It comes from diesel and petrol cars, rom coal power plants, kerosene lamps, and stubble burning in farmlands. Which means there are expecting mothers all across the country that aren't smoking during their pregnancies, and yet there's carbon depositing in their placentas.