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Home › Articles › Toddler Health › What's in the Air?

What's in the Air?

10 Ways to Protect Your Child from Air Pollution

By Laura Cone

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Ritz and Wilhelm reviewed the death certificates of infants living in the South Coast Air Basin of California, an area known for high air pollution levels. They looked at the average carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone and particulate matter levels for the two-week, one-month, two-month and six-month periods before each child's death.

They found a link between high levels of carbon monoxide and air particles with infant respiratory-related deaths during the postneonatal period and high nitrogen dioxide levels with SIDS. Low-birth-weight and premature infants appeared more susceptible to air pollution.

"There are indoor sources of air pollution as well," Wilhelm says. "Tobacco smoke would be a major indoor air pollutant you would want to avoid."

Wilhelm says researchers, who focused on infant deaths between 1989 and 2000, identified infant deaths through death certificates. They knew where the infants lived based on the zip codes on the birth certificates.

"There is a network of existing air-quality monitors that have been erected to measure air quality on a continuous basis to see if we are in compliance with air quality standards," Wilhelm says. "That was our source of information about air quality. We linked the residential zip codes to the most appropriate monitoring station and looked at the air pollution levels during certain time periods prior to death."

Infants exposed to the highest carbon monoxide levels two weeks prior to death (in the top 25 percent of exposure) experienced an almost three-fold increase in risk of respiratory-related death during ages 4 weeks to 3 months compared to infants who were exposed to low levels of carbon monoxide (in the lowest 25 percent).

They also found infants exposed to the highest nitrogen dioxide levels two months prior to death (in the top 25 percen of exposure) had a 44 percent increase in the risk of SIDS compared to infants with the lowest nitrogen dioxide levels (in the lowest 25 percent).


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