India tops in premature births: Study

The Telegraph , Friday, February 17, 2017
Correspondent :
New Delhi, Feb. 16: A study released today has estimated India had over a million preterm births in 2010, twice China's count and the highest in the world, because expectant mothers were exposed to polluted air.

The study exploring how tiny particles known as PM2.5 might affect unborn babies has estimated that India alone accounted for 1.1 million of the world's 2.7 million preterm births associated with PM 2.5 pollution.

While preterm births have long been linked to the expectant mother's age, illness, or poverty, the findings add evidence to indications from recent studies that maternal exposure to PM2.5 pollution might be an additional risk factor, scientists who conducted the study said.

The study suggests that about 18 per cent of the world's 14.9 million preterm births - babies born before 37 weeks of gestation - in 2010 were associated with exposure to PM2.5 pollution. Preterm births carries risks of death or long-term physical and neurological disabilities.

"We did the analysis for 2010 because that was the most recent year for which we had complete data," Johan Kuylenstierna, a study team member with the Stockholm Environment Institute, University of York, UK said. "Since then, we may assume that the population exposed to pollution has grown."

Over the past five years, several research studies have pointed to maternal exposure to PM2.5 as a risk factor for preterm births. Some of these studies have also suggested that these particles may lead to lung, placental, or uterine inflammation and trigger preterm births.

"What we have right now is a strong association between PM2.5 exposure and preterm births. More work needs to be done to understand the possible mechanisms," Kuylenstierna told The Telegraph in a telephone interview.

The scientists - who used PM2.5 levels, preterm birth rates and the numbers of livebirths to calculate the numbers of preterm births associated with PM2.5 pollution for 183 countries - have published their findings this week in the research journal Environment International.

They found that the largest contribution to the global burden of PM2.5-associated preterm births in 2010 came from South Asia and East Asia, with China's count estimated to be 500,000.

The main sources of PM2.5 are old diesel engines and vehicular exhausts, the burning of agricultural wastes, and emissions from traditional solid fuels such as wood and biomass. "It is important that action needs to be taken on all the major sources," Kuylenstierna said in a media release.

"In a city, maybe only half the pollution comes from sources within the city itself - the rest will have been transported there by the wind from other regions or even other countries. This means that often regional cooperation is needed to solve the problem."

A similar association between air pollution and premature births had also emerged last year from an independent study by scientists at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The Johns Hopkins team led by Xiaobin Wang had found that pregnant women exposed to the highest levels of air pollution were nearly twice as likely to experience intrauterine inflammation as those exposed to the lowest levels of air pollution. Intrauterine inflammation is among the leading causes of preterm births.

Scientists at the New York University Langone Medical Centre had suggested in a research paper last year that air pollution is known to increase toxic chemicals in the blood and cause immune system stress that might weaken the placenta and lead to preterm birth.

The NYU Langone team led by Leonardo Trasande had estimated that the annual cost of nearly 16,000 premature births linked to air pollution in the US crosses $4 billion.

Their analysis, published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, added the costs of prolonged hospital stays, medications, and lost economic producitivity resulting from the physical and neurological disabilities associated with preterm births.

 
SOURCE : https://www.telegraphindia.com/1170217/jsp/nation/story_136265.jsp#.WKaC4zZ97IU
 


Back to pevious page



The NetworkAbout Us  |  Our Partners  |  Concepts   
Resources :  Databases  |  Publications  |  Media Guide  |  Suggested Links
Happenings :  News  |  Events  |  Opinion Polls  |  Case Studies
Contact :  Guest Book  |  FAQs |  Email Us