Pregnancy and Birth Defects From Salon Chemicals
I've often thought about the toxic smell of beauty parlors. There's one in the local indoor mall which you can smell long before you even approach it.See Also: Environmental Threats To Your Fertility (www.getpregnantover40.com)
I frequently worry about the people who work in salons because they must breathe in the fumes all day. Apparently there's good reason to worry. I've also known a number of hairdressers who decided to quit their jobs when they started trying to conceive. This recent article in newscientist.com talks about a link between hairspray and birth defects:from the article:
Paul Elliott from Imperial College London, and colleagues, interviewed 471 mothers whose sons had been born with the defect and 490 mothers of children not born with the disorder, to try to find out which chemicals the mothers had been exposed to: including exhaust fumes, printing ink, hairspray, or glues.
While the other substances did not return statistically significant results, the use of hairspray appeared to have a big impact. Of the 74 women who reported regular exposure to hairspray at work during the first three months of pregnancy, 50 gave birth to sons with the genital defect.
In contrast, the proportion of children born with the defect was much lower in women who did not report being in regular contact with hairspray - just 294 out of 618. Overall, the study found that women exposed to hairspray were 2.3 times more likely to have children with the defects.
The team suggests a group of chemicals called phthalates that are found within hairspray may be to blame.
from:
(www.newscientist.com)
(www.newscientist.com)
