Poster created for participants in the Mothers & Newborns Study in Northern Manhattan / South Bronx, describing what to expect at every stage of the study. English / Spanish
CCCEH Research: Northern Manhattan / South Bronx
This is the Center’s largest study, focusing on a sample of 725 African American and Latino pregnant women and, once born, their babies whose health is monitored from birth through 9 years of age. Families are typically low-income and live in New York City’s Washington Heights, Harlem, and South Bronx neighborhoods where rates of asthma are among the highest nationwide, and rates of low birth weight and other developmental problems are also elevated. Mothers are all healthy, non-working, and non-smokers at the time of enrollment into the study, and have been living in their neighborhood for at least one year.
Research Findings
Following is a summary of key findings from this research study:
Exposure
- All pregnant women in the study and their babies are exposed to multiple common pollutants that can harm fetal and child development, respiratory health, or increase cancer risk. Exposures include: PAHs in outdoor and indoor air (produced by fuel burning from motor vehicles, power plants, industry, incinerators, residential heating) (Perera et al., 2003); pesticides used in homes (Whyatt et al., 2004); and Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) (Perera et al., 2004).
Fetal Growth and Cognitive Development
PAHs
- Prenatal exposure to PAHs reduced birth weight and head circumference in African-American babies born to women who were more highly exposed to the air pollutants. (Perera et al., 2003).
- Children with high prenatal exposure to PAHs had significantly lower test scores at age 3 on the Bayley test for cognitive development and were more likely to be developmentally delayed (Perera et al., 2006).
Pesticides
- Prenatal exposure to two household pesticides, chlorpyrifos and diazinon, which transfer easily from the mother to her fetus, reduced birth weight by an average of 6.6 ounces — the equivalent of weight reduction seen in babies born to women who smoked (Whyatt et al., 2004).
- Children prenatally exposed to high levels of chlorpyrifos were significantly more likely than children exposed to low levels to experience delay in both psychomotor and cognitive development, and to manifest symptoms of attentional disorders, Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and pervasive personality disorder at age 3. Although the EPA banned residential use of chlorpyrifos in 2001, this pesticide is still widely used in agriculture (Rauh et al., 2006).
- Governmental regulation has immediate positive effects on children’s health. Following the residential ban, this study showed benefits of the EPA’s 2000/2001 ban on home use of the pesticides chlorpyrifos and diazinon (Whyatt et al., 2004).
Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS)
- Children prenatally exposed to secondhand smoke — especially children experiencing material hardship (unmet basic needs food, clothing and housing) — had significantly reduced scores on tests of cognitive development at two years of age (Rauh et al., 2004).
Asthma Risk
- Over half the babies in the study have been born with an immune response to cockroach proteins that may increase the risk of asthma in certain children (Miller et al., 2001).
- Pest infestation, allergen levels, and pesticide use are higher among women and babies living in the most deteriorated housing (Rauh et al., 2002).
- Combined prenatal exposure to airborne PAHs and postnatal secondhand smoke results in the increased likelihood of respiratory symptoms at age 1,2 years that may be associated with increased children’s asthma risk (Miller et al., 2004).
- In the Center’s evaluation of the New York City Housing Authority's intervention to reduce toxic pesticide use in public housing, high cockroach and mouse allergen levels were significantly associated with asthma prevalence among children and adults, controlling for a range of potential confounders (Chew et al., 2006).
Cancer Risk
- Approximately 40 percent of babies in the study were born with DNA damage associated with carcinogenic PAHs. Of particular concern, newborns had higher (approximately 10-fold) levels of adducts than mothers per unit of estimated exposure, indicating greater fetal susceptibility and potential risk from these pollutants (Perera et al., 2004).
- Prenatal exposure to PAHs was linked to structural changes in babies’ chromosomes. Such genetic alterations have been related in other studies to increased risk of cancer in children and adults (Bocskay et al., 2005).