研究发现，空气污染会在怀孕期间抵达胎盘

研究发现，空气污染会在怀孕期间抵达胎盘

A new study suggests when a pregnant woman breathes in air pollution, it can travel beyond her lungs to the placenta that guards her fetus.

一项新的研究表明，当孕妇吸入空气污染时，空气污染会从肺部传播到保护胎儿的胎盘。

Pollution composed of tiny particles from car exhaust, factory smokestacks and other sources is dangerous to everyone’s health, and during pregnancy it’s been linked to premature births and low birth weight.

汽车尾气、工厂烟囱和其他来源的微小颗粒物构成的污染，对每个人的健康都是危险的，在怀孕期间，它与早产和出生体重过低有关。

But scientists don’t understand why, something that could affect care for women in highly polluted areas. One theory is that the particles lodge in mom’s lungs and trigger potentially harmful inflammation.

但科学家们不明白为什么，这可能会影响到对高污染地区妇女的护理。有一种理论认为，这些微粒会滞留在妈妈的肺部，引发潜在的有害炎症。

Tuesday, Belgian researchers reported another possibility, that any risk might be more direct.

周二，比利时研究人员报告了另一种可能性，即任何风险都可能更加直接。

A novel scanning technique spotted a type of particle pollution — sootlike black carbon — on placentas donated by 28 new mothers, they reported in Nature Communications.

据《自然通讯》报道，一项新的扫描技术在28位新妈妈捐献的胎盘上发现了一种颗粒污染——类似黑炭的煤烟。

The placenta nourishes a developing fetus and tries to block damaging substances in the mother’s bloodstream. The Hasselt University team found the particles accumulated on the side of the placenta closest to the fetus, near where the umbilical cord emerges.

胎盘滋养发育中的胎儿，并试图阻止母亲血液中的有害物质。哈塞尔特大学的研究小组发现，这些微粒积聚在胎盘最靠近胎儿的一侧，也就是脐带出现的地方。

That’s not proof the soot actually crossed the placenta to reach the fetus — or that it’s responsible for any ill effects, cautioned Dr. Yoel Sadovsky of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, a leading placenta expert who wasn’t involved with the new research.

匹兹堡大学医学中心的约尔·萨多夫斯基博士警告说，这并不能证明煤烟是通过胎盘到达胎儿的，也不能证明煤烟会造成任何不良影响，他是一位没有参与这项新研究的著名胎盘专家。

Still, “just finding it at the placenta is important,” Sadovsky said. “The next question would be how much of these black carbon particles need to be there to cause damage.”

尽管如此，“仅仅在胎盘中发现它就已经很重要了，”萨多夫斯基说。“下一个问题会研究，需要多少黑碳粒子才能造成破坏。”

Scientists already had some clues from animal studies that particles could reach the placenta, but Tuesday’s study is a first with human placentas.

科学家们已经从动物研究中得到了一些线索，认为微粒可以到达胎盘，但周二的研究是首次对人类胎盘进行研究。

The Belgian researchers developed a way to scan placenta samples using ultra-short pulses from a laser that made the black carbon particles flash a bright white light, so they could be measured.

比利时的研究人员开发了一种利用激光的超短脉冲扫描胎盘样本的方法，这种激光使黑碳粒子闪烁一道明亮的白光，这样就可以对它们进行测量。

The researchers included placentas from 10 mothers who lived in areas with high pollution and 10 others from low areas. The higher the exposure to pollution, the more particles the researchers counted in the placentas.

研究人员收集了10位生活在高污染地区的母亲和10位生活在低污染地区的母亲的胎盘。受污染的程度越高，胎盘中的颗粒就越多。