Babies’ poop has much higher microplastic levels than adults

When it comes to babies, a considerable amount of plastic appears to go both side and side, according to new research involving spatulas, diapers and poo. In particular, the average The concentration of a ubiquitous type of microplastic in baby’s stool was ten times higher than in adult stools in a small pilot study published this week. Plastic, called PET, or polyethylene terephthalate, is widely used in polyester bottles and textiles.

The results suggest that infants may be exposed to even higher levels of microplastics than adults, according to the study’s authors. When babies put toys or clothes in their mouths, they can end up ingesting tiny fibers or pieces of plastic. Then there are plastic food containers, cups and bottles, which can also lose pieces of PET smaller than the diameter of a pencil eraser. Mixing hot water and formula in a plastic bottle can weaken the plastic and release even more small pieces of it. Crawling babies are also much more likely than adults who walk to have their faces full of microfibers from a polyester mat, which they could ingest or inhale.

Scientists are still to try determine what it all means for the health of babies. There isn’t a lot of research on how microplastics all around us – and in our bodies – affect human health. But the new baby poop study, published yesterday in the newspaper Letters on environmental sciences and technologies, some worried researchers.

“Babies are exposed to high levels of plastic, something has to be done,” says Kurunthachalam Kannan, co-author and professor of environmental medicine and pediatrics at New York University School of Medicine. “The early stages of life are very vulnerable. “

Scientists believed that ingested plastics would just come out the other side, much like other things kids might eat that they shouldn’t have eaten. Corn research published in 2019 suggests that very small pieces of plastic could actually pass through cell membranes to infiltrate the body’s circulatory system. If so, microplastics could cause more problems. There is some evidence that microplastics in the bloodstream could lead to inflammation and cell death, affecting the immune system, Kannan says.

Plastics also contain a myriad of chemicals, including endocrine disruptors that could disrupt the body’s hormones and have been linked to adverse effects on metabolism and reproductive and neurological health. Babies may be more vulnerable to these effects than adults as their bodies continue to grow and develop, and Kannan says the impact may linger into adulthood.

Kannan and his colleagues studied stool samples from six one-year-old children in New York City. They also examined the very first poo of three newborn babies. To do this, they scraped off samples of diapers using spatulas – being careful to avoid anything that was in direct contact with the diaper to avoid counting microplastics that might have come from the diaper and not from the diaper. baby. The researchers also decided not to test the plastic commonly used in diapers, called polypropylene. Instead, they searched for PET and polycarbonate (another type of plastic commonly used in phone cases) in the poo. They found both types of plastic, but saw only a significant difference in PET concentrations between babies and adults. They took stool samples from 10 adults in Albany, New York.

Not much is known about how exposure to microplastics varies across locations and populations. This new study therefore adds to the call for more research. “Our data provides basic evidence for [microplastic] exposure doses in infants and adults and support the need for additional studies with a larger sample to corroborate and extend our results, ”the study states.

“This is a very interesting article with very disturbing figures,” said Deonie Allen, a researcher at the University of Strathclyde, who was not involved in the study. Wired. “We need to look at everything a child is exposed to, not just their bottles and toys. “

The prevailing wisdom of twenty or thirty years ago that plastics are harmless is one reason there haven’t been many studies on the issue since, Kannan says. For that to change, he says, more federal research support will be needed, as studies that would focus on an even larger population are often prohibitively expensive. “It takes millions of dollars to do a study like this with 1,000 samples,” he says. “Of course, this will be a great study, but it requires a lot of resources. “