Closing power plants reduces rate of preterm baby births

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Closing coal- and oil-fired power plants has been linked to lower preterm birth rates and higher fertility levels in neighboring areas.

Researchers attempted to find the relationship between the closure of power plants and post-natal health. They compared premature births and fertility rates in communities surrounding eight power plants in California before and after their shuttering.

The plants were mainly closed between 2001 and 2011.

Babies born before 37 weeks of gestation are put under the preterm birth category.

According to findings, the percentage of preterm births dropped from seven percent in a year-long period before the closure of plants to 5.1 percent for the year after the shutdown.

Non-Hispanic African-American, and Asian women reported a much higher reduction in preterm births ranging from 14.4 percent to 11.3 percent.

"The 20-25 percent drop in preterm birthrates is larger than expected but consistent with other studies linking birth problems to air pollution around power plants," said Joan Casey, a University of California, Berkeley postdoctoral fellow, and the lead author of the study.

Premature babies are often admitted to neonatal intensive care units and require additional medical care, contributing to two billion US dollars in healthcare costs globally, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

"Most people look at air pollution and adverse health outcomes, but this is the flip side: We said, let's look at what happens when we have this external shock that removes air pollution from a community and see if we can see any improvements in health."

The researchers gleaned through the preterm birth rates in the radius of five to 10 km of the power plants.

Altogether around 57,005 birth cases, including 28,083 before the plants closed, were included in the study.

Casey highlighted that the study does not provide detailed effects of individual pollutants released by the power plants. Fine particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, benzene, lead, and mercury emitted from the plants have an adverse effect on human health.

"It would be good to look at this relationship in other states and see if we can apply a similar rationale to the retirement of power plants in other places," Casey said.

A commentary accompanied the study published in American Journal of Epidemiology. Pauline Mendola of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development maintained, "Perhaps, it is time for the health of our children to be the impetus behind reducing the common sources of ambient air pollution. Their lives depend on it."

[Top Image: Air pollution from power plants leads to increase in preterm baby births. /VCG Photo]