Microplastics are always present in daily life: in water, food and soil. Now, they are also a useless fact, revealed a new medical report.
In a study of pregnant mothers, microplastics throughout the placenta (connecting the mother to the baby) were recently detected in four pregnant and healthy women. In tests that analyzed only 4% of each individual’s placenta, at least a dozen plastic particles were found.
“It’s like having a cyborg baby: it’s no longer just made up of human cells, it’s a mixture of biological and inorganic entities,” said Antonio Ragusa, director of obstetrics and gynecology at San Giovanni Calibita Fatebenefratelli Hospital. Rome.
“Mothers were shocked,” he told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, the Daily Mail reported for the first time in English.
Scientists are not sure how microplastic (by definition less than 5 millimeters wide) affects human health. When we look at them, they seem to go through the digestive tract with the rest of the things we eat. What happens in the meantime remains largely a mystery.
The stakes are significantly higher for pregnant women, which is why it is so important to understand what plastic does inside the human body, at any stage of life. That’s why scientists call this new report “worrying.”
Ragusa and colleagues, whose findings were published in the journal Environment International, believe this may be just a snapshot of the total volume of plastic in the middle placenta.
The microplastics found were about 10 microns in size, or one hundredth of a millimeter, small enough to circulate blood flow between cells that are only 2 or 3 microns smaller.
Doctors fear that microplastics will not stop in the placenta and that they may be playing a role in a baby’s development.
“Because of the crucial role of the placenta in supporting fetal development and acting as an interface with the external environment, the presence of potentially harmful plastic particles is a matter of great concern,” the researchers in their report.
The composition of plastics varies, some include chemicals that are known to alter hormonal regulation or chemicals related to certain cancers. Meanwhile, scientists are discovering plastics in every corner of life, despite newborns. Earlier this year, researchers found that polypropylene bottles for baby formulas emitted millions of plastic particles into nutritional milk every day of use.
The study authors urged the research community to continue their research.
“Additional studies need to be done to assess whether the presence of microplastics can trigger immune responses or can trigger the release of toxic contaminants, causing damage,” they wrote.