Photo courtesy of Pixabay user RettungsgasseJETZTde
(OREGON) Some Northwest researchers have just published a study linking traffic congestion to low birth weights.
This comes from Oregon State University associate professor Perry Hystad, co-author of the study, who says that pollution intensified by traffic congestion has a measurable effect on pregnant women who live nearby…and sometimes, their unborn babies.
This specifically had to do with carbon dioxide emissions, and had a similar effect on birth weights that smoking while pregnant does. While the risk is fairly small, it still has an estimated impact on 25% of the pregnancies in the affected areas.
The takeaway?
Hystad says in the study you could reduce the impact of traffic on pregnancies several ways “This could be putting in sound walls, this could be zoning, this could be vegetation barriers. But we can target interventions to reduce this exposure at a very local level.”