Bad ecology provokes rickets in newborns
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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The health of the baby depends not only on the proper nutrition of the mother, a healthy lifestyle and her physical activity, but also on the air she breathes.
In many large cities, the big problem is the pollution of atmospheric air. The main cause of this problem for environmentalists is the low mobility of air masses, in particular because of temperature inversions.
We breathe a "cocktail" of hundreds of chemicals of organic and inorganic nature. The sources of harmful impurities in the air are transport and industrial enterprises.
Contaminated air is dangerous and can be the cause of chronic heart and respiratory diseases. Scientists have found out, what dangerous the polluted air for the women who are "in position" is dangerous.
Polluted air breathed by pregnant women can affect the decrease in vitamin D levels in the body in newborns. Especially it is dangerous in the last months of pregnancy.
To this conclusion came the French scientists from the National Institute of Health and Medical Research.
"We have traced the connection between the action of the air inhaled by the mother of polluted air and the amount of vitamin D in the infant's blood serum," says the lead author of the study, Nur Baiz. "The results of our work can be the first evidence that air quality affects the level of vitamin D in newborn babies, which subsequently causes diseases associated with it."
375 pregnant women participated in research of scientists. The effect of nitrogen dioxide in the air, as well as solid particles of less than 10 μm throughout the gestation period, is the cause of vitamin D deficiency in infants. Most of all, the influence of polluted air was observed in the third trimester of pregnancy.
Vitamin D is necessary for normal metabolism of bone tissue. Its deficiency leads to rickets and the development of muscle weakness.
Experts are concerned about the health of the future generation and say that if such an ecological situation does not change, but only worsen, then humankind is waiting for deplorable consequences.
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