Parents who are exposed to the compound Bisphenol A – more commonly known as BPA – are at increased risk of having low birth weight babies, according to a new study published in the journal Reproductive Toxicology.
Researchers with Kaiser Permanente looked at more than 1,000 men and women in China who faced varying degrees of BPA exposure in the workplace.
The women who were exposed to high levels at work while pregnant were more likely to have smaller babies, followed by women who were exposed to low levels during pregnancy, and then by women whose husbands worked with high levels of the compound.
Even where BPA was not present in the mother’s workplace, she could still face exposure if her husband worked with the chemical – through his clothing, workplace visits, or by living close to the manufacturing plant.
Since BPA can pass through the placental barrier, it‘s believed that fetuses are exposed to roughly the same levels as their mothers, according to previous studies.
Due to the small sample size and the fact that the BPA exposure levels were estimated rather than measured directly, more research is still necessary.