Sreemoyee Chatterjee
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Written By: Sreemoyee Chatterjee | Updated : September 17, 2018 9:13 PM IST
Carbon from vehicular emission can affect your placenta © Shutterstock
Thought of safeguarding only your lungs from air pollution? It is time to think about ways of protecting your placenta as well. That is exactly what a recent study that was presented in a meeting at State of the Science Congress on Nursing Research has shown. According to the study soot can affect your placenta. The researchers have shown evidence tiny particles of carbon that are generated by burning fossil fuels in placentas for the first time. The study also hints at how air pollution can harm unborn babies when pregnant mothers take in polluted air and sooty particles reach their placentas through blood stream.
Dr Norrice Liu, the lead researcher reportedly said: "We've known for a while that air pollution affects foetal development and can continue to affect babies after birth and throughout their lives. We were interested to see if these effects could be due to pollution particles moving from the mother's lungs to the placenta. Until now, there has been very little evidence that inhaled particles get into the blood from the lung."
The researchers focused on particular cells called placental macrophages existing in different parts of the body and are a part of your body's immunity system. These cells consume harmful particles like bacteria and pollutants and help in protecting the foetus in placenta. After studying around 3,500 placental macrophage cells, the researchers found black spots of about five micrometers in these cells. The researchers believed that these black spots were due to deposition of soot or carbon particles released from vehicular emission.
"Our results provide the first evidence that inhaled pollution particles can move from the lungs into the circulation and then to the placenta. We also know that the particles do not need to get into the baby's body to have an adverse effect because if they have an effect on the placenta, this will have a direct impact on the foetus," reportedly added Dr Liu.
