Pollutants' Passage From Mother To Child

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*/Pollutants' Passage From Mother To Child/*

Researchers assess how efficiently mothers transfer 87 environmental

contaminants to their developing babies

n Betts

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/89/i02/8902news1.html

Researchers used to think that the placenta was fairly effective at

protecting the fetus against foreign compounds, says Philippe Grandjean

of Harvard University's School of Public Health. In recent years,

researchers have documented that pregnant and lactating mothers transfer

environmental contaminants to their children and that these exposures

can impair neurological, reproductive, immunological, respiratory, and

metabolic development.