Moms-to-be, your furniture and cosmetics contain chemicals linked to children’s brain disorders

A new study shows that exposure of pregnant women to common thyroid-hormone disrupting toxins, which can be found on furniture, drugs, cosmetics and plastic, may be linked to the increased incidence of child’s brain development disorders.

Exposure of pregnant women to common thyroid-hormone disrupting toxins may be linked to the increased incidence of child’s brain development disorders, researchers have found. Numerous, common chemicals can interfere with normal thyroid hormone actions, which are essential for normal brain development in foetuses and young children, they say. A previous study found that a chemical used in plastic packaging and in the linings of food and beverage cans may be passed from a mother to her offspring during pregnancy and cause changes in the gut bacteria of the offspring.

“We have reviewed the documented exposures of pregnant women and children to mixtures of thyroid-hormone-disrupting chemicals and propose that the data sets provide a plausible link to the recent increased incidence of neurodevelopmental conditions,” said study co-author Barbara Demeneix, Professor at the Universite Paris-Sorbonne.

Many of the identified endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), which include pesticides and substances used in manufacturing a multitude of products, have been reported to interfere with thyroid hormone function, the researchers said.

With maternal thyroid hormones (TH) essential for normal brain development of children, the researchers also said that previous human studies have indicated that even moderate disruption to TH function in pregnant women may affect cognitive development and increase the risk of brain developmental disorders in their children.

The research further highlights that complex mixtures of these thyroid-disrupting chemicals are present in all humans, including children and pregnant women. These findings indicate that exposures of pregnant women and children to thyroid-disrupting chemicals in the environment pose real risks for child development and health, and underline the need for a more targeted public health intervention strategy, it says.

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