Women have very crucial roles as mothers and their influence to their baby's health and well-being starts even before their child is born. Exposing themselves to toxins during pregnancy, for instance, can pose risks to their baby.
Unfortunately, many women are apparently unaware that their exposure to certain substances can have a negative impact on their child and their health providers appear to be partly responsible for this lack of awareness.
A new study published in the journal PLoS One on June 25 suggests that many obstetricians fail to give advice to their pregnant patients about environmental hazards that can potentially harm their developing babies.
For the study, Naomi Stotland, from the University of California San Francisco's Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences, and colleagues conducted an online survey of members of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) to assess how obstetricians in the U.S. view and act on prenatal exposure to environmental hazards.
Of the 2,514 qualified responses that they received, Stotland and colleagues found that 78 percent of the respondents acknowledged that they can reduce their patient's exposure to toxic substances through counseling but less than 20 percent routinely ask their patients about environmental exposures that are common among pregnant women.
The researchers likewise noted that 50 percent of the surveyed physicians rarely ask their patient for an environmental health history and only one in 15 of the respondents had training on environmental health hazards.
As to what prevented them from counseling their patients about prenatal environmental exposures, the doctors said that they have insufficient knowledge about the topic or lack supporting evidence, are concerned that their patients cannot reduce their harmful exposure, and fear that raising the issue may cause anxiety to their patients.
"U.S. obstetricians surveyed recognized some impact of environmental exposures on reproductive health, but lacked training, time, and tools to counsel patients," the researchers wrote.
It also appears that there is a disparity between lower-income pregnant women and those who have higher income and education when it comes to awareness on environmental hazards.
Stotland said that health providers serving lower income women feel they do not have enough time to provide counseling on environmental risks as there are more pressing issues that they have to discuss with their patients including poverty, poor diet and psycho-social stressors. She said that health providers caring for highly educated women, on the other hand, receive questions, sometimes unexpectedly, from their patients about the risks of exposure to certain substances.
