Microplastics and other pollutants increase miscarriages among expectant mothers
Our modern world jeopardizes pregnant women's health
Around my pollinator garden, carpenter bees have been making their nests, and I’ve been watching a mother dove raising two hatchlings in my greenhouse. All this has got me thinking of spring, mothers, and babies. These are all pleasant thoughts, but as I looked into some of the new science on motherhood, I ran across some disturbing findings. It seems that our modern world, with all our conveniences and devices, is presenting hazards for expectant mothers.
Up to 25 percent of pregnant women miscarry. Common causes of spontaneous abortion include chromosomal abnormalities, malformed uteruses, infections, hormonal imbalances, and trauma. Though we know these causes, about half of all miscarriages remain unexplained.
Scientists are now looking into environmental influences that may keep a woman from carrying her pregnancy to term. A study published earlier this month in the journal Particle and Fibre Toxicology found that microplastics and even smaller nanoplastics can increase a woman’s chance of having a miscarriage.
When exposed to sun, weather, and physical abrasions, plastics break down into smaller and smaller pieces of plastic, microplastics. These remnants of our sandwich bags and garden hoses are everywhere. They are in our food and drinking water. They are in the clouds, wind, and rain. Invariably, they wind up in our bodies. Bits of plastic now float around in our bloodstreams. All of us now have tiny remnants of LEGO toys and lawn chairs in our veins.
The researchers looked at otherwise healthy women who miscarried more than once, examining certain tissues of their placentas and comparing them with the same tissues drawn from women who carried their pregnancies to term. The women who had miscarriages had plastics in these tissues, and the more plastics, the more likely the women were to miscarry.
To learn how the plastics caused the miscarriages, under laboratory conditions the researchers exposed human blastocysts, fertilized eggs that had begun the process of cell division, to microplastics. Once exposed, cell death occurred in the outer layer of the developing blastocyst known as the trophoblast. The trophoblast is the portion of the blastocyst that attaches to the uterine wall, provides nutrients to the embryo, and develops into a large part of the placenta. The science thus indicates that the damage caused to the placentas by the plastics results in the miscarriages. More research by the scientists, exposing pregnant mice to microplastics, further confirmed the connection between microplastics and miscarriage.
Other modern hazards for pregnant women and babies
A study sponsored by the NIH and published in 2017 found that common air pollution could decrease a woman’s ability to carry her pregnancy to term. Urban smog is filled with ozone, a highly reactive molecule of three oxygen atoms. The study found that expectant couples exposed to this gas were 12 percent more likely to miscarry than couples who were unexposed.
Folks might feel safe if they avoid places like Los Angeles that are known for smog, but ozone pollution is ubiquitous, plaguing even our National Parks. In 2021, The Environmental Defense Fund found that every state in the Union except Hawaii had at least one day of high ozone levels.
Air pollution is also filled with particulate matter. These solid particles and liquid droplets are emitted from automobile tailpipes, factory smokestacks, and other industrial sources. Some are visible as soot and smoke; other particulate matter can be so small it is invisible and seen only under a microscope. Particulate pollution lodges into lungs and can even enter the bloodstream. The scientists in this study found that miscarriages increased by 13 percent for couples exposed to particulate matter pollution.
To perform this study, the researchers followed 501 couples in Michigan and Texas who were trying to conceive and monitored their exposure to pollutants. All miscarriages of this study group occurred in early pregnancy. The researchers surmise that the air pollution increased inflammation and stress of the placenta, which can impair fetal development. They suggest pregnant women avoid outdoor activity when there are air quality alerts.
Besides pollution, exposure to electromagnetic radiation has increased over the last 50 years, particularly considering the use of microwave ovens and cell phones. A study conducted in 2017 found that women who are around a lot of this radiation have miscarriages more than two and a half times more than women with little exposure.
Old-fashioned stuff, power lines and household appliances like vacuum cleaners, create low-frequency magnetic fields; cell phones, cell towers, smart-meter networks, and other newer devices create higher frequency magnetic fields. Low- or high-frequency, there is a lot more electromagnetic radiation now than 50 or 60 years ago, and high-frequency radiation may affect our health more adversely than low-frequency.
For this 2017 study, over a thousand pregnant women in and around San Francisco carried meters that monitored their electromagnetic exposure. They carried them for a full day (24 hours) of their typical activities (working, shopping, commuting, sleeping, etc.). Controlling for factors like race, education, and smoking, which can also affect miscarriages, the scientists found women with the highest electromagnetic exposure miscarried 2.7 times more than women with the lowest level of exposure.
What can we do? What should we do? Should we abandon our WiFi? Reduce plastics in packaging? Will that be enough? How about you? Are you expecting? Are you concerned about yourself and your baby? Please feel free to share your thoughts by clicking the “Leave a comment” button.
Good article Paul as always. Briefly, I think that it's important to focus on what we can do both individually and as a community, guided by the latest science, to tackle these tricky problems smartly.