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| Water Filters and Healthy Babies |
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By Aquasana
If you are currently pregnant, chances are that you want to deliver a healthy, happy, full-term baby. You are probably taking great care to eat healthy foods, take daily vitamins, get the proper amount of rest, and avoid ingesting harmful chemicals. However, as much care as you are taking to ensure the delivery of a healthy baby, you may be (quite unknowingly) allowing harmful toxins into your body that can adversely affect the health of your baby.
Many pregnant women innocently expose their babies to harmful contaminants, often several times a day, through the ingestion of unfiltered tap water.
Several recent epidemiological studies have researched the impact of tap water on the health of unborn fetuses and have published some alarming results. In the following paragraphs, you can read about the specific effects of three fairly common water contaminants on pregnant women and their unborn fetuses: disinfection byproducts, lead, and arsenic.
Disinfection byproducts include a class of chemicals commonly referred to as trihalomethanes (THMs). They occur in drinking water as a result of water chlorination. While THMs cause a number of adverse health conditions in the body, they play an especially insidious role in the bodies of pregnant women.
Recent research studies have connected THMs in tap water to increased risk of neural tube defects in unborn babies and to early-term miscarriages.
For women who are consistently exposed to a relatively high level of THMs in their tap water, the odds of neural tube defects in their babies are more than twice that of women not exposed to THMs.
In addition, the study found that women who drank at least five glasses per day of tap water with heavy THM concentration had an early-term miscarriage rate of 15.7%. The miscarriage rate of women who did not drink tap water was 9.5%.
While THMs are known to cause some very serious problems for unborn babies, it is not recommended that pregnant women drink water that has not been disinfected. Non-chlorinated water can cause a host of other problems. The best solution for reducing the risk of THM-caused pregnancy problems is to install a water filter system in the home. A water
filter will remove THMs and any remaining chlorine from water after it has already been disinfected.
The second dangerous contaminant, lead, has long been associated with learning disabilities and other developmental delays in young children and unborn fetuses. Lead ingestion can also result in hyperactivity, stunted growth, and even brain damage. Infants under the age of six months are especially vulnerable to the harmful effects of lead contamination, due to the higher amount of water they drink in proportion to their body weight.
The connection between lead-contaminated drinking water and the rising number of diagnosed learning disabilities throughout the country is certainly not coincidental and should not be ignored.
Lead can enter a child’s or pregnant woman’s body in a variety of ways; however, one of the most common entrances is through the ingestion of contaminated drinking water. Lead most often occurs in drinking water as a result of pipe corrosion in a home’s plumbing system. Most homes built before 1965 contain lead pipes, and it is likely that these homes proffer lead-contaminated drinking water. However, lead can also occur naturally in water and should be considered a threat to pregnant women and children residing in post-1965 homes, as well. To remove the risk of lead contamination in your tap water, researchers suggest installing a point-of-use home water filter. To learn more about lead and its specific health risks, see The History of Water Filters.
Arsenic, a third ominously present contaminant in drinking water, has long been considered a dangerous poison. Health professionals consistently warn their clients to be wary of arsenic poisoning because it is known to cause a number of cancers in adults. However, arsenic, in addition to THMs and nitrate, has some particularly dangerous effects on pregnant women and their babies, including low birth weight and spontaneous abortion.
Because arsenic can occur in drinking water through both man-made and natural means, there is no population that is entirely safe from its effects.
Some researchers estimate that approximately 60 million residents of the United States receive tap water with harmful levels of arsenic in it.
While tap water can be quite dangerous to a pregnant woman and her baby, the solution is clearly not to remove water from the diet. Water is an essential component of any nutritional plan, and drinking an adequate amount of water is especially important for pregnant women. Overall, the best solution to the problem of water contamination is to install a water treatment system into the home.
Water filters, as a type of water treatment system, are guaranteed to remove harmful THMs from drinking water.
However, you will want to find a water filter that combines activated carbon with another filter media to ensure the removal of inorganic contaminants like lead and arsenic. To learn more about different water treatment alternatives and the beneficial role of water in your life, see All About Water.
While many factors affect the health of your unborn baby, drinking clean, uncontaminated water is one of the easiest ways to ensure the timely delivery of a happy and healthy baby.
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