THE DANGERS FACED BY MUMS-TO-BE

EXPECTANT mothers who use fragrance products may be exposing their babies to harmful chemicals. While the placenta screens out some toxins, it can’t stop them all. Some of those fragrances can be absorbed through her skin, lungs and digestive system, and travel in her blood into the baby’s body.

Potentially, this can impact on foetal development due to a blocking or disrupting action certain fragrance chemicals have been found to have on male hormones. Studies of baby boys with genital deformities have been linked to mothers with high levels of the phthalate DEP — a chemical used to blend fragrance ingredients — in their blood, which mimics the action of the female hormone oestrogen.

Researchers summed up their findings in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives: ‘These data support the hypothesis that prenatal phthalate exposure at environmental levels can adversely affect male reproductive development in humans.’ Of course this extra oestrogen could come from other sources, such as pesticides. But fragrance is part of this bigger, worrying picture.