A pioneering study conducted in Maceió (AL) found microplastics in placentas and umbilical cords of babies born in the Alagoan capital. This is the first study of its kind conducted in Latin America and the second in the world to confirm the presence of these particles in cords. The results were published this Friday (25), in the Annals of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences.
“The placenta is a great filter, see the amount of things that exist in the world and are harmful, but very few pass through the placenta. So, when the first studies found microplastics in the placenta, we thought it was acting as a barrier, but among the participants in our study, 8 out of 10 had more particles in the umbilical cord than in the placenta, so they pass in large quantities and are reaching the babies even before they are born. And this is a snapshot of the end of pregnancy. During the nine months, how much passed?”, highlights Alexandre Urban Borbely, leader of the research group on Women’s and Pregnancy Health at the Federal University of Alagoas (UFAL) and one of the authors of the study.
The team analyzed samples from ten pregnant women at Hospital Universitário Professor Alberto Antunes and Hospital da Mulher Dra. Nise da Silveira, in Maceió. They were subjected to Micro-Raman spectroscopy, a technique capable of identifying the chemical composition of molecules with great precision.
The placenta samples presented 110 microplastic particles, and 119 were found in the umbilical cords. The most present compounds were polyethylene, used in the manufacture of disposable plastic packaging, and polyamide, which is part of the composition of synthetic fabrics.
Borbely has been investigating microplastic contamination during pregnancy since 2021. In 2023, a joint study with researchers from the University of Hawaii at Manoa had already confirmed the presence of the particles in samples of placentas from Hawaiian women. The research also showed that this contamination increased over time, since microplastics were found in 60% of samples collected in 2006, 90% in 2013, and 100% in 2021.
The partnership was maintained for the investigation in Maceió, which also received funding from the Foundation for Research Support of the State of Alagoas and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). Despite all the Brazilian samples being contaminated, they presented fewer chemical additives associated with plastic polymers than the North American samples.
“We sought women who were treated by SUS, with a more vulnerable socioeconomic condition, because the vast majority of studies are done in developed countries. So, we wanted to bring the reality of our population. And plastics are formed from different polymers that change according to the location,” adds Borbely.
Since microplastics are present even in the air, it is not possible to determine the source of contamination with precision, but the researcher believes that marine pollution makes a great contribution, since the Alagoan population consumes a lot of fish and seafood, including filter-feeding mollusks. Another important origin point is bottled mineral water, which acquires the particles even more rapidly when the gallons are exposed to sunlight.
The research will now expand the number of samples collected to 100 pregnant women and seek correlations between microplastic contamination and complications during pregnancy or health problems identified shortly after the babies’ birth. For this, it is implementing the Center of Excellence in Microplastic Research, with funding from the Financier of Studies and Projects – Finep, of the Ministry of Science and Technology. The expectation, according to the researcher, is that these results will be published in 2027.
“Everyone’s concern who works in this area today is to try to understand what this contamination is causing, because this is very serious. This whole generation that is coming is already born exposed to these plastics inside the uterus. And the plastic is composing the organism of these individuals in some way since formation”
“An American article that came out this year showed a relationship between a specific polymer found in the placenta and cases of prematurity. We published a study with human cells and tissues showing that polystyrene plastics pass easily through the placental barrier and cause changes in the metabolism of this placenta and in the production of free radicals, which is also an indication that it will affect the baby’s development,” adds Borbely.
For the researcher, these discoveries raise a collective and political alert, since individual actions are little effective for avoiding contamination: “Brazil does not have regulation for plastic. And the most important here is the action that comes from above, from the government, regulating those who are producing the plastic: how this production should be, the disposal of plastics, the implementation of filters in these industries. If we can reduce it in the environment, consequently we will reduce what remains in us,” he explains.
Source: Agência Brasil