Decreasing prenatal exposure to pesticides reduces the number of underweight and SGA [small for gestational age] neonates.
http://my.webmd.com/content/Article/84/98156.htm?printing=true "...Whyatt's team collected data from 316 pregnant African-American and Dominican women living in northern Manhattan and the South Bronx. They found that during their pregnancies, the women often were exposed pesticides. And before 2001, infants born to mothers exposed to the highest levels of chlorpryifos had lower birth size and birth weight. Diazinon likely contributed to this effect. "By 2001, after exposures had been reduced due to U.S. EPA regulatory action, almost none of the newborns had these higher exposure levels and the association between cord plasma chlorpyrifos levels and birth weight and length was no longer significant," Whyatt and colleagues write. "Study co-author Frederica P. Perera, DrPH, director of Columbia's Center for Children's Environmental Health, says the regulations clearly benefit public health. "This study is good news for our nation's children," Perera says in a news release. "The evidence that birth weight increased following the Environmental Protection Agency's regulatory action implies important benefits for the children's future health and development." "However, these pesticides continue to be used for agricultural use on many food crops. Pregnant farm workers may be at particular risk, the authors note..." Tangentially related: At the barns, we use pheromone-baited fly traps and parasitical wasp predators for fly control; my estimate of the bait-traps' effectiveness was at least a 50% reduction in adult flies that first summer. Of course, manure removal is also critical. The household equivalent for, say, roaches would be boric acid-based products (which dessicate the little scuttlers to death), and meticulous 'filth' control (no food-encrusted dishes, garbage removed several days/week, etc. - as opposed to dirt, which is not so bad IMO, although roaches are so versatile that stuff like boxes of books provide them with both habitat and food). Debbi __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance Tax Center - File online. File on time. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
