Unborn children at higher risk of respiratory infections after Morwell fire, study finds
Unborn babies whose mothers breathed in smoke from a major coalmine fire in Victoria in 2014 were more likely to suffer respiratory infections in their early childhood, according to a new study.
Coughing, wheezing and diagnosed cases of respiratory infections all went up among 79 children tracked between two and four years after the fire that choked the town of Morwell in February and March 2014.
Published in the Medical Journal of Australia, the research found young children exposed to the smoke from the Hazelwood coalmine were less affected, but parents reported their children were using asthma inhalers more often.
The finding that unborn children were more at risk was “unexpected” the researchers wrote, “as inhalation is presumed to be the primary route of exposure to air pollutants”.
The researchers have warned that impacts on pregnant mothers and their unborn children need to be considered as climate change was driving an increased risk bushfires, exposing more people to smoke.
Multiple fires started at the opencut mine on 9 February 2014 and an inquiry found it was likely they were ignited by embers from nearby bushfires.
The research was led by Dr Fay
Johnston, an associate professor at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research at the University of Tasmania.
Prof Graeme Zosky, deputy director of the Menzies Institute for Medical Research and a co-author on the study, said there had been many studies on the health impacts of long-term exposure to air pollution but much less was known about the impacts of short-term exposure to high-levels of pollution, particular on pregnant women.
He said the impacts on unborn children that unfolded years later were compared to 81 young children also exposed to the smoke. Results were compared to impacts on Morwell children born after the fires and who were not exposed to the smoke.
In the research, the authors wrote: “Our findings suggest an increased susceptibility to acute respiratory infections during childhood after exposure in uteroto a severe air pollution episode.”
The numbers of severe smoke events from bushfires was likely to in
crease because of climate change, the authors wrote.
“Protecting pregnant women and young children from episodic severe smoke events should be central to public health responses to poor air quality,” they concluded.
The study relied on parental reports of children’s health compared to reports from parents of children that were born after the fires had gone out.
As daily exposure to fine particles in the air from the fires went up, so did reports two to four years later of children coughing, sneezing and diagnosis from doctors of upper respiratory infections.
The researchers said that in utero exposure to smoke could have a larger impact on the long term respiratory health of children in their first two years of life.
In a submission to an inquiry into the fire, the Victorian Council of Social Service noted children in Morwell were already disadvantaged compared to other places in Victoria.
That submission also said the state’s chief health officer at the time had advised that vulnerable people – including the elderly, young children and pregnant women – should relocate away from the smoke.
Dr Jo McCubbin, a paediatrician from Sale, 60 kilometres east of Morwell, remembers smelling the fires in early 2014 and seeing soot condensed in drops of dew on her windows.
She said: “This was a five-week exposure but it was enough for us to be concerned, but it did take a long time for pregnant mothers to be included in the warnings.
“The study is important because it tells us we can’t ignore what happened to these children and their families. Also it tells us this is an Australia-wide problem because that short and sharp impact happened to people all over Australia with the most recent fires.”
A separate 2019 study found that children from the town aged under two at the time of the fire had reduced lung function when they were examined three years later.
In July 2019, four companies were each found guilty in Victoria’s Supreme Court on three charges related to pollution the air. Those companies –
Hazelwood Pacific Pty Ltd, Australian Power Partners BV, Hazelwood Churchill Pty Ltd and National Power Australia Investments Ltd were collectively fined $340,000 over the blaze.
The sentences were suppressed until May 2020 to allow a related case to be heard. Victoria Environmental Protection Authority chief executive Dr Cathy Wilkinson described the incident as “grand-scale pollution that affected the environment and every member of the community”.