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Oct. 4, 2004 -- Women working in nail salons, dry cleaning establishments, medical laboratories, and manufacturing plants listen up: Pregnant women who have on-the-job exposure to chemical solvents used with these types of jobs are putting their fetus' brain development at risk, new research shows.
In the study, these children had impairment of their intelligence, language development, dexterity, hand-eye coordination, and behavioral skills, reports researcher Dionne Laslo-Baker, MSc, a toxicologist with the Motherisk Program at the Hospital for Sick Children and the University of Toronto.
"Reducing exposure in pregnancy is merited," she writes in the latest issue of the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.
Both animal studies and case reports (of mothers who abused solvents -- "sniffers" -- during pregnancy) have pointed to this risk. But it's been less clear whether lower-level exposures to solvents -- like those pregnant women encounter in certain jobs -- have an effect on their babies.
In her study, Laslo-Baker recruited 32 pregnant women -- all of whom had these types of jobs and were exposed to solvents for at least eight weeks of their pregnancy starting during the first trimester. She and her colleagues followed the women and their babies' progress up to nine years.
They compared the outcomes of these children with the children of women who weren't exposed to solvents. The mothers were otherwise similar.
Exposed Kids Tested Lower
The children's intelligence, language development, dexterity, hand-eye coordination, and behavioral skills were measured at various intervals during the study.
All of the exposed children had significantly lower scores in each of the tested areas, Laslo-Baker reports. The children also showed less dexterity and eye-motor coordination, less ability to pay attention, and greater hyperactivity.
"Each of these areas, combined or on its own, may pose challenges in these children academically and socially," writes Laslo-Baker. "If children are not successful in facing these challenges during their early school years, they may risk not achieving their full potential at school, limiting their career choices in later life."
The results "suggest some adverse fetal effects" when pregnant women are exposed to organic solvents in their jobs, she writes.
