Air in the home could affect infant health

New born babies lie in a baby room of a hospital in Shanghai, July 10, 2006. Compounds found in air in the home could pose more of a health risk to breast-fed babies than chemicals they are exposed to through their mother's milk, researchers in the United States said on Tuesday.

NEW YORK Feb 13 (Reuters Life!) - Compounds found in air in the home could pose more of a health risk to breast-fed babies than chemicals they are exposed to through their mother's milk, researchers in the United States said on Tuesday.

They found that a nursing infant's exposure to gases known as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from indoor air was 25-135-fold higher than from breast milk.

"We ought to focus our efforts on reducing indoor air sources of these compounds," said Sungroul Kim of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland.

VOCs are gases emitted from certain solids and fluids such as paints, cleaning supplies, building materials, printers, glues and photographic solutions.

Everyone is exposed to a least a trace of the compounds and their concentrations are higher indoors than out.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it has found levels of about a dozen common organic pollutants to be up to five times higher inside a house than outdoors, regardless of whether the home was in an urban or rural area.

The health effects of exposure to VOCs vary depending on their toxicity. Some cause no harm while others can lead to headaches, nausea, fatigue, dizziness and irritation of the eyes, nose and throat or damage to the nervous system or organs.

In a small study, Kim, his colleague Rolf Halden and Tim Buckley of Ohio State analyzed milk samples from three nursing mothers living in Baltimore on consecutive days.

They tested the milk samples for benzene, methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), and toluene which are emitted by automobile exhausts other products and chloroform.

They also analyzed the same VOCs in air samples collected from within the women's homes.

"We were pleasantly surprised to see these relatively low concentrations of VOCs in human milk," said Buckley, the senior author of the study published online by the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

"Especially for inner-city settings, which is where VOC levels tend to be the highest," he added.

Buckley noted that all of the women lived near busy roadways and added that the level of traffic and the distance from traffic affect the air people breathe.