New York babies born in the weeks and months after September 11th may have suffered. Researchers say the babies had a low birth weight, which may be due to the effects stress had on their pregnant mothers.
For babies in utero during the attack on the World Trade Center, the odds of being born underweight in New York City and Upstate New York significantly increased, according to a new study from the Center for Children's Environmental Health Research at the University of California Berkeley. The study appeared in the November issue of the journal Human Reproduction.
Scientist consider 2500 grams to be normal birth weight.
Babies born within seven days of the attacks had a 67% increase in risk of weighing between 1500 and 2000 grams.
The researchers of the study found that after the attacks, in December 2001, there was a 36% increase in the risk of a baby weighing less than 1500grams. In January the risk was still 22% higher.
Professor Brenda Eskenazi, who led the study, said:
"We think the increased incidence in low birth weights is mainly due to stress-initiated early deliveries.
"We observed immediate effects in New York City, but long-term effects both in the city and upstate.
"This may indicate that higher levels of stress are necessary to induce acute effects on birth outcome, but that, in the longer term, women in both locations suffered stress as a result of the disaster and this is reflected in the later peaks in low birth weights."
Via BBC
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