By Pamela Madrid
October 25, 2022
Fetal growth — which is delicate and precisely programmed — may be disrupted by a mother’s exposure to air pollution and psychological stress during early to mid-pregnancy, a new USC study shows.
The findings, published Tuesday in JAMA Network Open, suggest that protecting pregnant women from air pollution may improve birth weight, especially among stressed-out mothers living in environmentally burdened neighborhoods.
“Although air pollution has a harmful effect on many different populations, our study identified the effects on expectant mothers who are already most vulnerable,” said Zhongzheng “Jason” Niu, postdoctoral scholar and research associate at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and the study’s first author.