One in 10 Premature Births Linked to Plastic Chemical
One in 10 premature births in the United States have been linked to pregnant women being exposed to chemicals in extremely common plastic products, a large study recently revealed.
The chemicals, called phthalates, are used to soften plastic and can be found in thousands of consumer items including plastic containers and wrapping, beauty care products and toys.
Phthalates have been known for decades to be "hormone disruptors" which affect a person's endocrine system and have been previously linked to obesity, heart disease, some cancers and fertility problems.
Because they affect hormones, these chemicals "can precipitate early labour and early birth", lead study author Leonardo Trasande of New York University's Langone Health centre told AFP.
By analyzing the level of phthalates in the urine of more than 5,000 pregnant women in the United States, the researchers were able to examine how exposure to the chemicals could have affected how early the babies were born.
The 10 percent of mothers with the highest levels of phthalates had a 50-percent increased risk of giving birth before week 37 compared to the lowest 10 percent, according to the study in The Lancet Planetary Health.
Extrapolating their findings across the US, the researchers said that nearly 56,600 preterm births could have linked to phthalate exposure in 2018 alone, roughly 10 percent of the country's premature births that year.
Babies born prematurely or at a lower weight tend to have more health problems later in life.
The researchers estimated the resulting medical and social costs of phthalate exposure for preterm births in the United States was between $1.6 and $8.1 billion.
While the study was carried out in the US, Trasande said that phthalates are so ubiquitous that five to 10 percent of premature births in most other countries could probably be linked to the chemicals.