Infants pick up toxic chemicals in intensive care.Neonatal intensive care units routinely save the lives of extremely premature and critically ill newborns. Many of these successes are made possible by tubing and other equipment rendered flexible with a plasticizer known as diethylhexyl phthalate Phthal´ate n. 1. (Chem.) A salt of phthalic acid. (DEHP DEHP Di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate DEHP Diethylhexylphthalate DEHP Diethyl Hydrogen Phosphite DEHP Dual Encoding Hierarchical Pipelining ). A new study finds that this equipment releases DEHP into the babies, though the impact on such children is still uncertain. Everyone carries at least traces of phthalates Phthalates, or phthalate esters, are a group of chemical compounds that are mainly used as plasticizers (substances added to plastics to increase their flexibility). They are chiefly used to turn polyvinyl chloride from a hard plastic into a flexible plastic. , which are ubiquitous pollutants (SN: 2/22/03, p. 120). However, DEHP in neonates is a special concern because "it is a reproductive and developmental toxicant toxicant /tox·i·cant/ (tok´si-kant) 1. poisonous. 2. poison. tox·i·cant n. 1. A poison or poisonous agent. 2. An intoxicant. adj. in laboratory animals," says study author Russ Hauser of the Harvard School of Public Health The Harvard School of Public Health is (colloquially, HSPH) is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Longwood Area of the Boston, Massachusetts neighborhood of Mission Hill, next to Harvard Medical School and Cambridge, Massachusetts, in Boston. Hauser and his colleagues collected urine from 54 infants in intensive care. Tests at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), agency of the U.S. Public Health Service since 1973, with headquarters in Atlanta; it was established in 1946 as the Communicable Disease Center. in Atlanta turned up a metabolic breakdown product of DEHP in nearly every sample, the team reports in an upcoming Environmental Health Perspectives. The researchers had logged all DEHP-containing equipment to which each child was exposed, including breathing and feeding tubes, lines carrying blood to an oxygenation oxygenation /ox·y·gen·a·tion/ (ok?si-je-na´shun) 1. the act or process of adding oxygen. 2. the result of having oxygen added. machine, and catheters. Grouped into three levels of the children's exposures to plastics during intensive care, urine concentrations of the DEHP marker correlated with the extent of exposure. Urine from the highest-exposure group contained five times the concentration of the marker as did urine from the least-exposed babies, and infants intermediately exposed to DEHP had medium concentrations of the chemical marker. The highest marker concentrations in the study were up to 20 times as high as those reported in studies in healthy toddlers. To date, no adverse impact has been reported among children with known exposures to DEHP. Many plastic hospital products that are low in or devoid of phthalates are available, Hauser notes, adding that they might be particularly appropriate for infants in intensive care, who are "being exposed at a sensitive window" of development. |
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