Association between exposure to air pollution during intrauterine life and cephalic circumference of the newborn

Influence of gestational hypertension and maternal air pollutant exposure on birth outcomes

The relationship between exposure to air pollutants and fetal growth outcomes has shown inconsistency, and only a limited number of studies have explored the impact of air pollution on gestational hypertension and birth outcomes. This study aimed to evaluate how maternal exposure to air pollutants and blood pressure could influence fetal birth outcomes. A total of 55 women with gestational hypertension and 131 healthy pregnant women were enrolled in this study. Data pertaining to personal characteristics, prenatal examinations, outdoor air pollutant exposure, and fetal birth outcomes were collected. The study revealed that fetal birth weight and abdominal circumference exhibited a significant reduction among women with gestational hypertension compared to healthy pregnant women, even after adjustments for body mass index, gestational age, and exposure to air pollutants had been made. Moreover, maternal exposure to outdoor air pollutants displayed a notable correlation with decreased birth length of fetuses. Consequently, the study concluded that maternal blood pressure and exposure to outdoor air pollutants during pregnancy potentially stand as pivotal factors influencing fetal birth outcomes.

Climate change, air pollution and maternal and newborn health: An overview of reviews of health outcomes

Background

Climate change represents a fundamental threat to human health, with pregnant women and newborns being more susceptible than other populations. In this review, we aimed to describe the current landscape of available epidemiological evidence on key climate risks on maternal and newborn health (MNH).

Methods

We sought to identify published systematic and scoping reviews investigating the impact of different climate hazards and air pollution on MNH outcomes. With this in mind, we developed a systematic search strategy based on the concepts of 'climate/air pollution hazards, 'maternal health,' and 'newborn health,' with restrictions to reviews published between 1 January 2010 and 6 February 2023, but without geographical or language restriction. Following full text screening and data extraction, we synthesised the results using narrative synthesis.

Results

We found 79 reviews investigating the effects of climate hazards on MNH, mainly focussing on outdoor air pollution (n = 47, 59%), heat (n = 24, 30%), and flood/storm disasters (n = 7, 9%). Most were published after 2015 (n = 60, 76%). These reviews had consistent findings regarding the positive association of exposure to heat and to air pollution with adverse birth outcomes, particularly preterm birth. We found limited evidence for impacts of climate-related food and water security on MNH and did not identify any reviews on climate-sensitive infectious diseases and MNH.

Conclusions

Climate change could undermine recent improvements in maternal and newborn health. Our review provides an overview of key climate risks to MNH. It could therefore be useful to the MNH community to better understand the MNH needs for each climate hazard and to strengthen discussions on evidence and research gaps and potential actions. Despite the lack of comprehensive evidence for some climate hazards and for many maternal, perinatal, and newborn outcomes, we observed repeated findings of the impact of heat and air pollutants on birth outcomes, particularly preterm birth. It is time for policy dialogue to follow to specifically design climate policy and actions to protect the needs of MNH.

Meandered and muddled: a systematic review on the impact of air pollution on ocular health

From the years 1970-2023, a systematic overview of the diverse consequences of particulate matter on eye health and a disease classification according to acute, chronic, and genetic are presented using the PubMed, Research Gate, Google Scholar, and Science Direct databases. Various studies on medical aspects correlate with the eye and health. However, from an application perspective, there is limited research on the ocular surface and air pollution. The main objective of the study is to uncover the relationship between eye health and air pollution, particularly particulate matter, along with other external factors acting as aggravators. The secondary goal of the work is to examine the existing models for mimicking human eyes. The study is followed by a questionnaire survey in a workshop, in which the exposure-based investigation was tagged based on their activity. This paper establishes a relationship between particulate matter and its influence on human health, leading to numerous eye diseases like dry eyes, conjunctivitis, myopia, glaucoma, and trachoma. The results of the questionnaire survey indicate that about 68% of the people working in the workshop are symptomatic with tears, blurred vision, and mood swings, while 32% of the people were asymptomatic. Although there are approaches for conducting experiments, the evaluation is not well defined; empirical and numerical solutions for particle deposition on the eye are needed. There prevails a broad gap in the arena of ocular deposition modeling.

Dietary Pattern Influences Gestational Weight Gain: Results from the ProcriAr Cohort Study-São Paulo, Brazil

The maternal pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) and gestational weight gain (GWG) influence maternal and infant outcomes. This study identified patterns of habitual dietary intake in 385 pregnant women in São Paulo and explored their associations with excessive weight gain (EGWG). Weight at the first visit (<14 weeks) was used as a proxy for pre-pregnancy weight. Food consumption was assessed using the 24HR method, administered twice at each gestational trimester, and dietary patterns were identified by principal component analysis. Three dietary patterns were identified: “Vegetables and Fruits,” “Western,” and “Brazilian Traditional.” Descriptive data analysis was performed using absolute and relative frequencies for each independent variable and multilevel mixed-effects logistic regression was used to analyze excessive gestational gain weight (EGWG) and dietary patterns (DP). The Brazilian Traditional dietary pattern showed a protective effect on EGWG (p = 0.04) and age > 35 years (p = 0.03), while subjects overweight at baseline had a higher probability of EGWG (p = 0.02), suggesting that the identification of dietary and weight inadequacies should be observed from the beginning of pregnancy, accompanied by nutritional intervention and weight monitoring throughout the gestational period to reduce risks to the mother and child’s health.

Effects of ambient air pollution, fresh fruit and vegetable intakes as well as maternal psychosocial stress on the outcome of newborn otoacoustic emission hearing screening

BACKGROUND

Newborn hearing screening results indicated that more than 40% of the detected infants had no recognized risk factors. To determine whether maternal exposure to ambient air pollutants and experience of stressful life event, as well as lack of fresh fruit and vegetable during pregnancy are associated with the abnormal hearing development among newborns.

METHODS

A total of 1193 newborns and their mothers were recruited in this study. Personal information and covariates were collected by face to face interview. Medical examination results of newborns and their mothers were extracted from medical record. We estimated personal air pollutant exposure level through inverse distance weighted method based on data from air quality monitoring stations and assessed the auditory development of newborns via distortion product otoacoustic emission (DPOAE). Unconditional logistic regression model was used to estimate the relationship between DPOAE screening result and the potential influential factors as well as the combined effect.

RESULTS

The results indicated that PM₁₀ exposure during the second trimester and stressful life event during the third trimester could increase the risk of not passing DPOAE test among newborns. However, frequent intakes of fruit and vegetable significantly reduced the risk. There was a synergetic interaction between PM₁₀ exposure and stressful life event on neonatal hearing development.

CONCLUSIONS

To alleviate abnormal auditory development among fetus, pregnant woman should decrease the exposures to ambient air pollutant and negative life event and at the same time, intake sufficient fresh fruit and vegetable.