A recent study conducted by a team of psychologists from UC Riverside and UC San Diego reveals that pregnant women are regularly exposed to harmful toxins in the food and water they consume, which in turn puts the health and welfare of their unborn child at risk. The researchers believe that health care professionals should be actively advising their patients about potential risks of drinking tap water and consuming certain foods, including caffeine, canned good and some types of fish.

The study, which was published in the Nutrition Journal (July 2013), assessed the diets of 200 pregnant women ranging in age from 18 to 40 at a private medical facility in Downey, California. The study focused largely on Hispanic women, who comprised 87% of the women surveyed. The participants in the study had to complete a questionnaire detailing when and how often they consumed certain food products, drank certain beverages, or took medications – both prescription and over-the-counter drugs that are known to contain harmful substances that can cause birth defects. Most of the women in the group reported that they had consumed meat during their pregnancy, with 75% of them consuming fish – typically tilapia, salmon and tuna. While most of the women ate fresh fruit, less than 33% of them consumed more than one portion per day. A large percentage (75%) of the group regularly consumed canned foods including canned soup, fruit and vegetables. Most of the women regularly drank water, with 12% drinking tap water, while 80% of the women drank beverages containing caffeine, and 6% consumed alcohol at some point during their pregnancy. Most of the women took prenatal vitamins and acknowledged taking prescription drugs at some point during their pregnancy, and nearly 50% of the group acknowledged taking acetaminophen – an over-the-counter medication – at some time while they were pregnant.

Stay Informed As The Research Comes Out

“Unlike alcohol and nicotine, which carry a certain stigma along with surgeon general warnings on the packaging, tuna, canned foods, caffeine, and a handful of other foods and beverages with associated developmental effects are not typically thought of as unsafe,” explains Sarah Santiago, lead author on the study. “Hopefully, this study will encourage health care providers to keep pregnant women well informed as to the possible dangers of unhealthy consumption habits.”

According to the researchers, these results are disturbing. “Consumption of tuna, salmon, canned goods, sugary desserts, fast foods, and drinking of tap water, caffeinated beverages, and alcoholic beverages during pregnancy have been deemed unhealthy due to the appearance of environmental toxins found to have harmful effects in the developing offspring.”

Tuna contains toxic methylmercury, and prenatal exposure to this contaminant has been linked with a number of developmental problems including reduced attention and professionals assume they are healthy,” she explained. “The problem could also lie in reduced access to health care, or time constraints in prenatal consultations. Perhaps health care providers are informed, but fail to pass the information on to their clients for lack of time or because they assume the clients are already informed.”

Teratogenic substances – substances that cause developmental problems and birth defects – often result in subtle effects that only become more apparent and serious in later stages of development. “Research suggesting that a given substance does not cause physical abnormalities at birth may be misinterpreted as a green light for consumption — a grave mistake, considering that other research may exist demonstrating the long-term neural or behavioral abnormalities that result from consuming that substance during pregnancy,” explains Santiago, who together with her research team continues to collect data on the attitudes regarding consumption of these toxic substances. “Hopefully we will uncover some clues as to why women continue to eat these substances, and where in the system interventions would be most appropriate.”

Journal Reference:

Sarah E Santiago, Grace H Park, Kelly J Huffman. Consumption habits of pregnant women and implications for developmental biology: a survey of predominantly Hispanic women in California. Nutrition Journal, 2013; 12 (1): 91 DOI: 10.1186/1475-2891-12-91