Pregnant women who were near the 9/11 attacks in New York don’t have to worry that they might have put their unborn child at risk from exposure to toxic dust. A study published in Obstetrics and Gynecologycompared 446 pregnant women who had been near the World Trade Center site during or three months after the attacks to a similar group of women who hadn’t been in Lower Manhattan. There was no difference in terms of premature deliveries or birth weight — although women who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder did have more low-weight and preterm babies than those without such symptoms.
Two prior studies had shown a small effect from living around 9/11, but this study included more women, study author Dr. Thomas Matte of Hunter College tells WebMD. He hopes the results are “somewhat reassuring.”
