A new study has found that mothers' exposure to high levels of air pollution during the first three months of pregnancy leads to delayed speech development in their children by the time they reach 18 months.
A risk factor in early pregnancy that delays speech and motor skills development in infants
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The study, conducted by researchers from King's College London, included 498 infants born at St. Thomas' Hospital in central London between 2015 and 2020, including 125 premature babies.
The results showed that infants who were exposed to high levels of pollution in the first three months of pregnancy scored an average of 5 to 7 points lower on language tests compared to others.
The impact was even worse on premature infants, who, in addition to delayed speech development, also exhibited poorer motor skills. Premature infants exposed to the highest levels of pollution throughout pregnancy scored an average of 11 points lower on motor skills compared to those exposed to lower levels.
The researchers used the postal codes of the mothers' homes to estimate the amount of pollution they were exposed to during each trimester of pregnancy. The pollutants measured included nitrogen dioxide and fine particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5). When the infants reached 18 months of age, they underwent a standard clinical test to assess their cognitive, language, and motor skills.
Tyrone Scott, head of campaigns at War on Want, described the findings as a "wake-up call," stressing that air pollution is not just an environmental issue but "a matter of justice and equality from the very beginning of life itself."
Researchers warn that the implications of these findings are global, especially since almost the entire world's population breathes air containing pollutants that exceed the guidelines of the World Health Organization, which describes air pollution as "the world's greatest single environmental health risk."
The data indicates that the populations of low- and middle-income countries in the Global South suffer the highest levels of exposure, as many polluting industries have been relocated from the Global North to them.
As for the future of these infants, Dr. Alexandra Bonthrone, the lead author of the study, says: "At this stage, it is too early to say whether these infants will catch up with their peers. The only way to know is to study them later in childhood. It is possible that differences in development have effects on learning and information processing, but we will not know for sure until we conduct future studies."
