As a neonatologist, Franciscan Health Indianapolis doctor Paul Winchester long wondered why doctors have been seeing more babies born prematurely.
Increasingly he has come to believe that herbicides found in the environment could be at least in part to blame.
Along with other scientists, Winchester recently published an article in the journal Environmental Health finding that pregnant women whose urine contained higher levels of a chemical commonly used in herbicides were more likely to deliver low birth weight babies. In previous studies, Winchester and colleagues already had found that higher glyphosate levels correlated with a higher risk of preterm birth.
The most recent study of 187 pregnant women in the Midwest detected the chemical glyphosate, one of the most widely used herbicides, in the urine of all but one of the women during the first trimester of pregnancy. The scientists also found that women who had higher levels of glyphosate in their urine were more likely to give birth to babies who fell in lower weight percentiles and higher risk of neonatal intensive care unit admission.
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“The consequences of that are enormous,” Winchester said. “I don’t want to be Chicken Little and scream the sky is falling, but this is a really important indictment of what we have done and an invitation about what we could do if we paid more attention to it…. We forget how powerful these chemicals are.”
One of the most common herbicides, glyphosate is found in more than 750 products, including the popular weedkiller RoundUp, the study says.
Many of the foods we eat as well as the beverages we drink contain some glyphosate.
A birth ‘just out of the blue’
Winchester treats tiny babies born prematurely on a daily basis. In many instances, however, there’s no clear answer for what led to premature births, which can result in myriad complications for the newborns.
Little Molly Evans experienced many of those in the first months of her life. When her mother Brittany Tucker went into labor at 27 weeks of pregnancy, she had no sign that her first child would arrive about three months early and spend more than 10 weeks or so in the neonatal intensive care unit at Franciscan Health Indianapolis.
“It was just out of the blue,” Tucker said. “We didn’t even have a bag ready.”
Born Sept. 1 after only a few hours of labor, Molly weighed three pounds, one ounce at birth. Milestones for Molly including weaning off a ventilator after a week on the breathing machine, having her feeding tube removed, hitting five pounds.
After 79 days, Molly passed her car seat study and in mid-November was given the green light to move from the hospital to her Shelbyville home. Upon discharge, she had reached the weight of seven pounds, almost two ounces.
During Molly’s lengthy hospital stay, Winchester made weekly visits to check on her progress, Tucker said.
“They just took such good care of her in there,” Tucker said. “It meant everything to us, we were super-scared and confused.”
There’s no way to say whether glyphosate levels had any impact on her pregnancy. They were never measured at any point, because doing so is not a common practice at this point.
Ways to lower chemical exposure
Not every scientist even agrees that glyphosate poses a danger to human health.
The National Pesticide Information Center, a collaboration between Oregon State University and the Environmental Protection Agency, says that while glyphosate can be found in human urine and feces, most of the chemical that is absorbed or ingested passes through the body completely.
Although studies are divided on whether the herbicide can cause cancer, the site’s glyphosate information page says, long-term studies of animals fed glyphosate found it is not a reproductive or developmental toxin.
However, for people who are concerned, there are steps that Winchester recommends.
On an individual basis eating organic produce offers the best way pregnant people can lower their glyphosate exposure, Winchester said.
From a societal standpoint, Winchester would like to see Indiana water companies increase how often they sample chemicals in drinking water. Currently, they are required to do so only four times a year and that rarely occurs in June, when both herbicide levels and water sales hit their peak.
“We don’t have a chemical regulation system that’s weighted toward the safety of the public and it’s weighted heavily toward the success of companies selling chemicals,” said Winchester, who is also a clinical professor of pediatrics and neonatology at Indiana University School of Medicine.
The federal government could also do more intensive studies on the potential health of these chemicals before allowing their use, Winchester said.
International cooperation may also help mitigate the problem, Winchester said, as people around the world use herbicides in agriculture. He looks to the stories of how the world has cut back on the use of tobacco and ozone-unfriendly contaminants as models for what could happen with the substances he studies.
“These are chemicals we made. We can stop making them but can you live without your Teflon and PCBs and lawn sprays,” he said. “I feel like if the crisis is bad enough we can act.”
Contact IndyStar reporter Shari Rudavsky at shari.rudavsky@indystar.com.
